DIY CO2 Bubbles

[chrisfromnl]

I just built a DIY CO2 with Water/Sugar/Baking Soda/Yeast tonight. I have it hooked up to an airstone in my take, under the intake for the HOB filter. It's going crazy in there with approx. 10-15 mini bubbles every couple seconds. I guess it will slow down eventually? Is it possible to have too much (10G tank)? I have no fish in the tank yet, setting it up at home/growing the plants out before I take the tank to work.
Second question: is putting the airstone under the intake doing anything? I read somewhere to do that, but I don't know if it works for the HOB filters.

Thanks for any/all replies!

 

[jmhart]

You can't really get too much co2 with DIY CO2 and on top of that, if you have only plants no fish, high co2 will definitely not hurt.


Move the airstone as far away from the HOB as possible. Putting the co2 near/in the filter only works for cannister filters.

 

[Blueiz]

I would not put it under the intake of an HOB filter. While surface agitation is good if youre NOT injecting co2 to help keep the water circulated and the gases balanced in it, surface agitation while injecting co2 is NOT good because it will gas of the injected co2 into the air. My recomandation is to rmeove it from the intake, and make sure that the outake flow lip is below the water line if possible to reduce surface agitation (splashing), or eliminate it all together.

 

[Bk718]

^^ I agree with Jeff, with hob's diffusion via the intake is useless.

Hoping you are using limewood airstone and not the regular one, you can place it at the lowest leve in the tank, right below the filters overflow.

 

[chrisfromnl]

Only using a regular old green airstone. I have never seen wooden ones around here. Guess I will have a look sometime. For now it is better than nothing.

 

[Bk718]

Only using a regular old green airstone. I have never seen wooden ones around here. Guess I will have a look sometime. For now it is better than nothing.

I guess it is better than nothing but the bubbles that regular airstones give off are too large to diffuse fast in the water.
You can also shove a piece of a wooden chopstick into the airline and you will get tiny bubbles from that as well.

 

[Fishfiles1]

i use the under gravel filter stones, they work better then the wood ones

 

[Bk718]

arnt the undergravel filter airstones just regular airstones?

 

[Slappy*McFish]

For CO2 diffusion, the wooden airstones are the best at producing tiny micro bubbles. No other airstone comes close.

 

[Fordtrannyman]

I disagree; Using a HOB to diffuse C02 works far better than an actual ceramic diffuser.
With a HOB, it disperses C02 more effectively throughout the water column as the impeller munches up the bubbles.
Using a diffuser, bubbles go up and pop in the atmosphere.

A reactor is the best solution, although it takes a fairly small one with DIY.

I personally have one diffuser on a 29 gal and one reactor on an 80gal . The remaining seven planted tanks use a HOB as a diffuser.