diy co2 question

C

coyoteman

AC Members
Feb 21, 2005
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Hi everyone,
I recently made a diy co2 bottle out of a 2l pop bottle. I added 2 cups sugar 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon of active yeast. I used a 1/4 in. line to feed the co2 into the tank and attached a piece of foam on the tip of the line. Since then the nitrites have risen considerably. Everything was fine until the introduction of c02. The tank in question is a 55g. Is it the co2 causing the nitrite rise? Any help is appreciated.
 
What are the pH, gH and kH values of your water, out of the tap?
I've got very soft water and never needed more than 1/8 tsp. in my mixtures when I used to make them up.
CO2 has no bearing on nitrates in the water table, other than the fact that injection pushes plants to use them. So no, your injecting is not causing a rise in N.
How many bubbles per minute are you getting from your mixture. I have 2 55s and I'll tell you this.....one bottle over a 55 is not going to do much for your CO2 ppm.
What's your lighting like? Give us more info. on your tank for better feedback.

Len
 
Thanks for the reply. It is not my nitrates that have rose, but the nitrites.
PH is 7.6 low and 8.0 high. There are two 40watt floresent lights on the tank. KH is 90 mg/l and GH is 80mg/l. As for the the amount of bubbles it is hard to tell as i do not have a counter. Just a steady stream of little bubbles out the end of the piece of foam
 
OK, you have a shop light over the tank, correct?
This yields approx. 1.5 wpg. You will have fair success with a limited variety of plants in your tank, at that wattage.
Anubia, Java Fern, and Cryptocoryne will grow for you, but slowly.
Your kH is fine for injecting, but you need to up your CO2 production for it to make a difference in plant growth.
I apologize for mis-reading your post as NitrAtes when you meant NitrItes. If you are experiencing a rise in nitrites, it's not the CO2 injection that's causing it.
How long has the tank been set up? What type plants are in the tank? Fish?

Len
 
The tank has been up for a month and a half. I never thought about it but i changed the carbon filters at the same time so perhaps it was that. As for my lights I'm not sure what you mean by a shop light but i purchased the aquarium as a kit from walmart. It has two lights, one on each side with one light bulb in each. I would really like to add more lighting but not really sure how with this canopy set up. The plants that are in there now are java moss, moneywort, cabomba green(but the silver dollars ate them all but a few stems), and anacharis. Would you such a couple more 2L bottles? or would this be to much? and any suggestions on increasing my light at a reasonable price? Thanks again.
 
You are not going to have a lot of success with plants as long as you keep silver dollars in the tank(sorry to say). They eat almost anything green that they can get to.
I would move them to a separate tank, or start a separate tank for plants. The two do not co-exist well at all.
When I was using DIY, I had two 2L bottles linked together with a 'T' connector and was changing off one bottle every week to keep the mix fresh and consistent. And even with that, the best I could get was about 20ppm or so. 55 gals. is a lot of volume for a DIY set up.
Upgrading your lighting is costly. A 2X55 light kit (compact fluorescent) can be found here: www.ahsupply.com/
CF lighting will give you much better water penetration, which becomes an issue when dealing with a 55 (19" tall).

Len
 
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