Will someone take a look at my DIY C02 set-up?

Batmanjay28

Batmanjay28

AC Members
Aug 22, 2006
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Oregon
I just gone done making this yesterday. I have 2 2L bottles with the Jell-0 recipe.

I was wondering why my C02 gets pumped out of the bottles, into the water, then is trapped in the cut up top of the 2L bottle?

As you can see I have two tops from bottles to help trap the C02.....the thing is the bottle tops get full with the C02 and then escape and go to the top of the water and pop.

Is this a bad thing? Is the C02 even breaking down in the water? It's like I have 2 huge C02 air bubbles and they get to full then yet C02 up and out of the trap.....

Is there anything that I can do to help the C02 stay in the water.....or am I perfectly fine with the set-up that I have?

Also I have the bubble rate of about 4 bottles every 5 to 6 seconds.....how do I increase the bubble rate? OR is the bubble rate good where I have it?

fish stuff 001.jpg fish stuff 005.jpg fish stuff 006.jpg fish stuff 007.jpg fish stuff 008.jpg
 
The only way to change the bubble rate would be to control the temperature of the mix.

Your diffusion method is inadequate. Either feed the CO2 into the intake of your filter or get a diffuser.

Next time you make DIY bottles use juice bottles. They are much more stable and less likely to tip over.

The only way to tell if you are getting enough CO2 is to test the CO2 level.

You really need a check valve.

And you could have saved a ton of time making those bottles if you used the small hole method I outline in my Guide.
 
The intake thing on the filter...... is that the thing that hangs down in the tank that pumps the water up into the filter....like in my picture next to the tops of the bottles?
 
The cheapest and easiest way to do this is to get a glass diffuser with a ceramic disk, hook it up to your tubing and place it under the intake of your filter. Then you can eliminate the unsightly pop tops.

Since you have a HOB filter, make sure you keep the water level up in the tank as well. Less surface disruption will help keep the CO2 dissolved in the water.

Like Rex said, make sure you get a check valve.

Here's a pic of a diffuser.

diffuser.jpg
 
I use a powerhead to diffuse DIY CO2 in my planted tanks (55g and 29g). I just feed the airline into the intake of the powerhead. It chops the bubbles up and diffuses them into the tank.
 
Batmanjay28 said:
The intake thing on the filter...... is that the thing that hangs down in the tank that pumps the water up into the filter....like in my picture next to the tops of the bottles?
Click to expand...

yes it is. putting it into the intank should be better then just what ever your using now. i have used a internal filter and the a glass diffuser and both worked great.
 
I bought a Hagen bubble defuser from my LFS. I have placed it in the tank at the bottom.....is there any certain place I should have it at?

And a lot of the bubble get away and float to the surface.....I really don't know how to fix that. But for the most part the C02 gets trapped in it.....
 
Tough crowd you got here batman. Your tank looks nice. I even noticed the check valve in the picture. The crypt, and the java fern should do well. The Lilaeopsis will be a bit harder. You might want to put some substrate ferts under it and the vals.
 
I used to have the bubbles fill a shot glass in the tank, but I found the big bubble release scared the crap out of my fish.

What if you tried poking some pinhead holes into the bottle top lids?

I use a 2cm piece of wooden chopstick shoved into my tube to dissolve the bubbles. It's been working for 3 months and at least its cheap to replace.
 
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