DIY CO2 System

I've had the same experience happychem - silicone just has not stuck well to tubing or the plastic caps. I recently went the no sealant/smaller hole than tubing route and seem to be getting better flow out of the bottle. I still need to make some sort of reactor/diffuser; I've got the tube stuck in the intake to my Whisper 10 filter, but I'm still not getting the dissolved CO2 levels I had when using an airstone. The only reason I hesitate to make one of the gravel vac tube w/sponge and powerhead or pump reactors is the space the tube would take up in my tiny 10G tank. I plan on looking for a small tube and powerhead/pump sometime this weekend to see what I can get setup.

And that's exactly the article I was referring to in my first post. Thanks Phoenix.

Thanks for all the input folks.
 
Happychem, I thought I'd post this in case you were interested - the glue I used on my juice bottle is called 'Loctite Stik 'n Seal waterproof adhesive'.
I haven't need to seal any of the pop bottle lids, but the one on this large juice bottle just seemed perpetually leaky - this glue is working very well so far :)
 
For bang for the buck, you can't beat those ladder diffusers that come with one of the brand name DIY CO2 units.
You don't need anything but the ladder and they are sold separately at most LFSs.
I used model airplane bulkhead fittings to go through the caps. With those you will get absolutely no leaks and they last forever. Problem is, try as I might, I can't locate the on-line company that sells them. Still looking........
I still have a few of them laying around here somewhere that I'll never use again. Let me see if I can find them.

Len
 
Have you guys added a 2nd (or 3rd, depending upon if you have 2 2-L bottles of yeast solution) soda bottle to your setup, in order to "catch" the solid runoff from the CO2 source? I've only seen one reference to this in the DIY CO2 articles online - and I just found that with running the CO2 directly to an airstone (via 1-way valve) that one can get a lotta gunk in the airlines - ugh. Maybe I put too much yeast solution in my 2-L bottle....
 
misa, I'm not sure what your talking about? what kinda junk?
you mean your getting the mixture going up through your airline?
if this is the case then use less water or a bigger bottle or be more careful with it...
there is no reason you should get solution up there...
 
There are some folks around here who run their CO2 through a bubble counter to cut down on the amount of yeast snot that makes it to the tank. I don't personally, I run my line straight to a powerhead with no airstone to get clogged. Every month of so I clean the snot out of the tubing manually. I thought about the bubble counter, but in the end decided that there would still be tubing to be cleaned and it would just be one more point for leaks to happen.

Thanks for the info Blinky, btw.
 
Here's the link to the bulkhead fittings I was talking about:
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXG849&P=7
They are cheap and very effective. They come two to a package, and the shipping will cost more than the items. I bought 1/2 dozen of them and gave a bunch away.
Still have a few around here.
You drill a hole in the cap just large enough to accommodate the fitting and bolt it together.

Len
 
My canister...... not bottle

For mine I went to Walmart a got a acrylic food storage canister, it's about 6" around and about 12" tall. You no the ones, they have a wide full lid with a silicone gasket around the edge and snap down clasp locking mechanism.
Just make sure you check the gasket before you buy it, I did get one that had a small defect in the gasket and wouldn't seal 100%.

Cost around $7 and they work wonderful and are easy use and clean/sterilize because of the wide mouth. They are made of hard acrylic type of plastic and have 1/8 thick walls, also very classy looking.

Just drill a hole using a drill bit sized to 1/8" rigid tubing, cut you rigid tubing with a slant on the end thats insdie the canister to prevent any water that may condensing on end from being pushed up in tube. Also when drilling hole offset it to the side of lid and drill hole at slight angle so the tubing comes out at a convenient angle for routing it the direction you want the tubing to feed. Make sure your rigid tubing is long enough (say 4" outside canister) so you can hit it with a heat gun and curve it downward so you can make a downward loop in your flexible tubing for the check valve to be set in with nipple facing down.

Then seal the tubing onto the lid using any type of solvent based glue, PVC solvent will even work, any slow set glue that you can open up and it smells like solvents will do, the rigid tubing will actually be chemically welded to the plastic lid of the canister forming a 100% rigid, 100% airtight seal.

The great thing about this is the wide mouth, when production starts to drop of I can open the lid, grab a small dixie cup and scoop out some of the old top layer water leaving the muck in the bottom and then add back in some fresh sugar water, (watch it, the muck will foam up when you 1st poor the new sugar in) close the lid and production will be back up to good as new within about 30 minutes. I only totally break it down every 3 months or so to sterilize the canister.

Then I used a heavy thick walled black 1/8 ID hose I found somewhere and secured all connections with mini blk plastic hose clamps that you can find at hardware stores that carry mini drip irrigation sytems. Then I made a loop for over the edge of tank out of rigid tubing bent with a heatgun. Attached this to the tubing with the mini hose clamps and thats it. Can highly recommend the thicker wall tube and hose clamp, thin wall can permeate gas through their walls and the hose clamps make any connection super airtight.

Made me a CO2 bell out of 1/2" rigid poly irrigation tubing cutting it about 6" long, using a sharp razor knife to cut away 1/2 the tubing about 1.5" on each end and used the heatgun to bend down the centers of the ends which forms it into trough about 6" long that catches and hold the CO2 bubbles underwater. I then attached this to the back wall about 1.5 below water surface using 2 heater suction cups made for Visatherm heaters making sure to level it out. Then routed CO2 tubing so that it bubbled up under trough and caught the bubbles. You can adjust the length of the tubing to control the amount of surface area of the CO2 bubble and water to adjust absorption, seems like about 1" per 10gal will yeild you a PH of about 6.8, but then I believe in just lightly allowing the water to absorb CO2 because I keep basically simple easy to grow plants under moderate lighting (2w/gal). They all thrive and grow moderately fast.

Basically between the canister and fitting I spent about $20 and 4 hours time making it.
 
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