Diy Co2

Easy.

Go drink some Gatorade or some sort of Apple Juice or Oceanspray.

Take drill or hammer with a small nail (smaller than the diameter of tubing).
Unscrew your cap, hammer the nail in the cap to make a small hole
Get some Airline tubing and pull it through the small small hole. The small hole will create a seal around the tubing so no need for glue.

Recipe:
2 Cups of Sugar
1/4-1 teaspoon of yeast (the more yeast the faster the reaction, more co2 for shorter period of time (2+ weeks)).
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda (optional)

Fill the container with water up to 3/4 way.
Put the cap on and twist it on tight.

Wait a few hours and you got co2.

Insert the airline tubing in your intake of your filter. or get a sweetwater stone from aquaticeco.com.

-John N.

nicely done

translation please

hey im in pretty much the same boat as the OP, however, im just plain poor. Cant use college as an excuse. Anyway, i was looking to buy one of those diffusers for my planted tank, and when I got down to picking the one I wanted I was at a loss. Can someone translate what this means?

AS1 Air Diffusers, 1.5"L x 0.5"W, 3/16" OD barb (4 mm), ABS

I got the measurement part, but what does 3/16" OD barb (4mm), ABS mean? Thanks in advance.

John N. - Good post w/ pictures.

Will this setup work for larger tanks? (80 - 90 gallons)

I know you said depending on how much yeast used determines how long the co2 lasts. Is there some kind of guideline to be used, when to recreate the secret co2 sauce? Or is just when the bubbles stop?

Thanks for the help!!

I wish I had a post like this a few weeks back when I was still understanding what a basic DIY system looked like. I finally realized it wasn't as difficult as DIY sites described it to be.

The only problem I have with this setup is that Gatorade and juice containers are not made to deal with carbonated drinks. That's why most of us use pop bottles. The caps for those are made to keep CO2 in (for the most part).

So, with those types of bottles, how do you prevent CO2 leaking out of the cap threads?

One other point -- there's no wash bottle and therefore nothing to stop the yeast solution from getting into the tank?

Also, no check valve. What happens if it starts to syphon and the flow reverses? All you have to do is knock the bottle over or accidentally squeeze it and you're in deep doo-doo. My cat knocked mine over. Luckily I was in the room when it happened.

Sorry to be nit-picky, but I've had nasty things things happen with that basic setup you've got here. Yeast in the tank is dangerous to the fish and no one wants 10-30 gallons of water all over their floor, much less an empty tank and fish floundering in a couple of inches of water.

Roan

Yah you can get a diffuser that has a check-valve in it, or you should install one yourself. Def don't want reverse flow.

They really should make a pictoral article that is something similar to this. People will understand better with the pictures. Or at least I would have. Everything I found was text based and I would have to read several times to understand what they were doing.

I'll try to post a pic of one of my DIY setups with wash bottle and stuff later today.

FWIW plastic check valves are not reliable. They can fail at any time and CO2 will degrade them as well. I check mine every time I change the bottle, but there's still a chance it could fail. Brass is best, but very pricey.

Roan

Roan Art said:

One other point -- there's no wash bottle and therefore nothing to stop the yeast solution from getting into the tank?

Also, no check valve. What happens if it starts to syphon and the flow reverses? All you have to do is knock the bottle over or accidentally squeeze it and you're in deep doo-doo. My cat knocked mine over. Luckily I was in the room when it happened.

Click to expand...

My cat knocked over my DIY CO2 and killed my discus. I look forward to seeing the preventive system.