# Worse Experience with DIY CO2?



## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

Someone brought up an interesting topic about the "End of tank dumping" that happens with pressurized CO2. .

It made me think about the hazards of DIY CO2. I read in the past that sometimes the bottle will explode due to pressure build up or being knocked over. You don't hear much about these accident these days. Are we simply more careful with DIY CO2? What's your worst DIY CO2 experience?

Lucky for me, I haven't had any issues! Crossing my fingers for more luck! 

-John N.


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## nailalc (Mar 17, 2006)

Back when I was running it, I was running around one day doing a million things at once and I asked my wife to refreshed the yeast. No problem with the sugar, baking soda, but when I said 1/4 teaspoon of yeast, she somehow took it as a packet of yeast. She connected everything and I kept on running around the house.

Soon....I run past the tank and it's completely cloudy and brown, nearby it the empty yeast packet. Cleaned up fast with the filter alone though, so it wasn't too bad....


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## KeIgO86 (Jun 23, 2005)

why will there be a pressure build up? especially if you are connecting the CO2 to a reactor? I'll bet if you were to shake up an unopened bottle of root beer the pressure will be much greater. Yet it doesn't explode.


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

I think it can happen where the yeast continues to build up pressure and eventually reach a breaking point where it can blow off the cap and spray yeast gunk all over the place. In a soda bottle, filled with rootbeer, I don't think their is anything that is producing additional CO2 and causing excess pressure to do this. Where as yeast will continue to produce.

Here are some old stories of DIY accidents.

-John N.


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## KeIgO86 (Jun 23, 2005)

I think I get what you mean. But most folks using DIY CO2 do not shut off their CO2 at all. They should not be any pressure build up as the CO2 produced is constantly released into the reactor or through a diffusor. The maximum pressure build up before it reaches the reactor is definitely not enough to burst a bottle. Pressure for CO2 to pass through a diffusor would be greater though, but I still doubt it will burst the bottle.

Sealing off your yeast CO2 bottle, well, thats asking for trouble.


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

True, but I guess it's not as common any more as I suspected. Folks probably got smarter on how they store and secure their bottles to avoid them from having pinched CO2 tubes or something. No one has yet to entertain us with a DIY disaster, so in a way that's good. 

-John N.


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## KeIgO86 (Jun 23, 2005)

I would be more worried for the mixture getting sucked into the tank water or vice versa than the bottle exploding.


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

My worst fish keeping experience happened whle I was using yeast-based co2. Somehow my mixture got into my main tank and created a brewery of sorts. I mean it really smelled like beer. I was able to save about have the fish. I swear off yeast-based co2 after this happened. Here's a pic of the tank as it was reacting with the mixture:


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## raven_wilde (Nov 16, 2005)

When I tried to setup DIY CO2 on my 70 gallon I did not use a gas seperator. I'd never had one on my 30 gal and since that setup had been going for nearly a year without problems I did not think it was necessary. For some reason though, this time I got quite a bit of leakage into my tank. Not too much though as I noticed what was going on after about a day and it was a slow leak... so it was only a little, not enough to kill anything or start a vat of beer going... but it was enough to encourage the *nastiest* algae I have ever had in a tank... fortunatly it was limited to the area closest to the CO2 output and not all over the tank, but still, it took forever to get rid of it!

From now on though, gas seperators on every tank!


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