# 2 questions on CO2 home brew? : )



## kineticcomfort (Aug 5, 2010)

I have been experimenting and am tryin to find they best way to effeciently do home brew CO2.

First question; should the bottle be shook daily, or just yeast in after sugar is disolved and moved as little as possible.

second question; tryin to produce more out of same container can you use more recipe per container?

example instead of 2 cups of sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of sugar, can I use 8 cups of sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and 4 teaspoons of yeast?

I am tryin to brew enough for a 75 gallon, med-high light, flourish substrate, rotala, myrio, ludwigia brazilian pennywort bacopa, java fern, reg and lace, java moss, christmas moss, 3 sizes of anubias. range of crypts, riccia, dwarf sub, micro sword, red mellon sword, ocelot sword, val, caboma fur, cardinal lu. tap water w 10-12dgh 7.4 ph fluval 305 canister


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

no, more yeast or sugar won't help in the long run.
more yeast starve sooner, more sugar goes wasted.
and shaking won't matter in the long run either.
when you shake, the Co2 already saturated in 
the water gets released sooner, that's all.

2 Liter Water (fill to top of ginger ale brand label)
1 lb Sugar, 1 Teaspoon NaHCO3, 1/4 Teaspoon Yeast 
shade the bottle in a black plastic liquor store bag.

DIY for a 75gal is impractical, but if you must,
use a pair of 2 liter ginger ale bottles for this,
each with it's own pound of sugar Co2 recipe.
you should get >2 weeks out of each of them.
some stores have 3 liter bottles, so if you want
to try that, simply increase everything by 50%.

_honestly, if you keep your lights <1.5wpg
the plants you have don't really require Co2,
they will grow slower, but with less algae risk.
I'm planning to use <130w on my own 75 gal_.

feel free to add driftwood to this tank to
lower the pH and soften the water a bit.


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## kineticcomfort (Aug 5, 2010)

I have 220 w going to tank and will be moved up to at least 260 when I can afford pressurized and the Lights.
I have 5 one gallon containers, one to a ladder difuser, and the other four to a air stone under the filter output.
the output and duffusion rate is not enough to get any type of noticeable pearling, I dont know if not getting enough co2 or enough light as I ran over 4wpg on 29 gal and was abloe to get nice pearling with one one gallon container.

Questions

should co2 mix be shook up, to mix yeast in, or should it just be put in after sugar water and disturbed at little as possible?, this is only in the begining not should it be shook daily.

your recipe asked for more baking soda than yeast, was this correct?, I use 2 cups of sugar to 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon yeast


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

I swirl the bottles every few days, and it seems to help. 

For a 72 gallon I use 3 (2 liter) bottles, swap out 1 per week. 

No, adding more to one bottle will not help. Add more bottles on a different schedule. 

I have tried 1 gallon jugs and they do not last any longer.


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## Rebel1970 (Jan 10, 2011)

I have read that if you mix more per bottle it will produce more CO2 very quickly, but it doesn't last very long. I shake my bottles about every 2 hours or whenever I think about it and it works fine. Please note that I am not an expert here, just experimenting like you. I have a 75 as well and use 3 or 4 bottles, I vary mine as I please. Good luck


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

Think of it this way...
If you start with 1/4 teaspoon of yeast, and it doubles in population every 2 days, then by day three it is the same as if you started with 1/2 teaspoon on day one. 
So increasing the yeast you start with does not make a lot of difference. 

If you start with any amount of sugar that is in excess of need, then adding more won't help. 
You start with so much sugar and the yeast grows as much as it can until the toxins increase and it dies. 
Get a better strain of yeast that can handle the alcohol and the bottle may last longer. Then maybe adding some more sugar might be worth while. I am not saying it will produce more CO2 per hour or second or whatever, but you might get a few more days or a week out of one bottle.


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## popomon (Oct 12, 2010)

how come we can never just replace some of the water to keep the toxin levels down? i never understood that


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## kineticcomfort (Aug 5, 2010)

what do you have to disolve the co2 in the water, right now I have 4 bottles running to one air stone under the outlet to my filter and one running to a ladder difuser and with the jungle co2 thing on top of it to catch any bubbles that did not fully disolve, this being the way more effecient way however can only run so much to it.


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## TAB (Feb 7, 2009)

I use a inline defuser. basicly a acrylic tube, with bio balls and a air stone in it.

works great for both DIY and a tank.


Theres a thread about it on here in the DIY section.


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## Delco (Aug 7, 2010)

My recipe goes like this.
9 oz grape concentrate 
9 oz table sugar
about 1/8 teaspoon of champagine yeast
this will make 2 bottles of wine.

this brews better than plain sugar because it has trace nutrients to help the yeast grow.


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## HolyAngel (Nov 3, 2010)

Delco said:


> My recipe goes like this.
> 9 oz grape concentrate
> 9 oz table sugar
> about 1/8 teaspoon of champagine yeast
> ...


Seriously drinkable wine? Or just saying? Might be worth it to switch recipe's then lol ^^


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

HolyAngel said:


> Seriously drinkable wine? Or just saying? Might be worth it to switch recipe's then lol ^^


I believe he/she is being serious. I have been known to drink my DIY CO2 leftovers as well back in the day. I would use straight-up grape juice (not concentrate) and mix in 4 cups sugar to a gallon and let teh yeast work its magic. After a couple weeks I swapped to a new batch, but the wine needed to sit another couple months to settle and not taste "yeasty". :tea:


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## kineticcomfort (Aug 5, 2010)

hmmmm I was talking with a friend yesterday and he makes his own wine, we were drinking some tasty pear wine he had made at the time, he brews in a 5 gallon container, question since I do 5 gallon containers, I would love to reduce this to one 5 gallon container but the air holes on the top for the thing they use to keep air from gettin in is way bigger than an airline tube and the cap does not screw on so I figure there would be problems with the co2 leaking out some at the cap.

has any tried to use a five gallon container for co2?
has anyone used these style of caps successfully on a setup?
How much would each wine brew cost?
how often would I have to change out the brew?


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

I tried a 5 gal on a 55gal tank once. It was a water bottle and had a screw-on lid that poked a hole into with a nail, then pulled the CO2 tubing through the hole. I increased the yeast in proportion to to the sugar and juice (based on 1-gal recipe) and it produced so much CO2 in the first couple hours that all my fish were gasping for air for another 3 hours after I removed it from the tank. If you use less yeast initially, it may work...I'm not sure.

I think if you made a proper wine recipe (do a primary fermentation before you put into the main fermentation process) it may work. But you had better get some solid advice on that first. I dont' want to be responsible for killing all your fish.


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## kineticcomfort (Aug 5, 2010)

where did you get the 5 gallon water bottle with the screw on lid


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