# How far can DIY CO2 actually take you?



## ZA_Ryan (May 18, 2006)

Hi all.

I recently started dabbling with planted tanks. At the moment there is nothing at all worth showing, it's only a tiny (15 litres) cutting tank that I'm dosing with homemade ferts and using DIYCO2. I'm planning on gaining a bit of experience with this tank and then converting one or two of my other, slightly larger tanks (there's a 54 litre and a 110 litre that I might use) into a planted tank. 

I've read (and been told by fellow aquarists) that once you start increasing your lighting on a tank, you have to increase the fertilisation and CO2 accordingly, so that nutrients in the tank remain in balance and you dont get horrible algae outbreaks. As you would have noticed from my profile, I live in South Africa and it is simply not possible to get hold of any form of pressurised CO2. I can increase lighting till my hearts content, same with fertilising, the weak point is going to be CO2. So I was wondering, how far can you go with DIY CO2? Perhaps some of you could post pictures of tanks that use DIY and mention what kind of maintenance routine you follow, as well as other stats for the tank, such as the amount of lighting that you're using, and obviously tank size.

What I'm basically asking is: am I doomed forever to low tech, low light setups? 

Any replies will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ryan.


----------



## yildirim (Nov 25, 2004)

Hi Ryan,

As long as you are not bored dealing with the mixture every 2-3 days, DIY would be a good solution for your CO2 requirement even tough your tank size may go way beyond 110 lt. Currently I'm using DIY yeast method with a 5lt bottle trough the inlet of my canister at my 130lt. While strating up with the mixture I do not dump a lot of sugar, instead I keep it around half a cup with some wet yeast and baking powder. After 2-3 days I start adding 3 cube sugars and change 25% of the water every 4-5 days to prevent alcohol buildup. The mixture goes for a long time for me this way. For smaller tanks you may use 2lt bottles instead and for larger ones large bottles or more than one bottles connected to each other.


----------



## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

No CO2 in South Africa? I'm sure you could cylinders at a welding supply shop, medical gas supply company, or at a soft drink / home brewing vendor. CO2 is a waste product of many industrial processes and it's pretty readily available throughout the world.

If you want to stick to DIY CO2 there is no problem in that. It's simply a problem of scale. You could theoretically run a 200 gallon tank on it if you have enough volume in the reactor. A 2 liter bottle is usually about right for a 20 or 30 gallon aquarium. If you wanted to run a 5 gallon keg as a reactor you could use it for just about anything. Your expenses for sugar and yeast would get pretty high though. If it ever tipped over or spilled you could have an enormous mess --- but it would be possible.


----------



## ZA_Ryan (May 18, 2006)

Thanks for the replies..

Ok, so it's not totally impossible , it's just prohibitively expensive. Most places will only rent canisters as opposed to selling them, and getting hold of proper regulators and diffusers is a costly business. I know it's not exactly a case of "pressurised CO2 in every household" in the USA (insert relevant first world country here), but judging by the number of hobbyists using it, it does seem to be a lot more accessible. 

Anyway. Enough ranting. After seeing what Yildirim has accomplished with DIY on his tank, I think I'll give this a bash on a 15 gallon, and see how that goes. Now to find some cool plants...

Thanks again,
Ryan.


----------



## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Hehe,

You're right in stating that pressurized CO2 isn't in every household. I live in a town of 100,000 with a metro area of maybe 4 times that. I know of 3 other people in the region that keep planted tanks. One of them besides me uses CO2. Surely there are more, but they don't hang out at LFS's, come to our planted tank society meetings, or post here.

If you really want to do pressurized CO2, I'm sure you could figure out how. Any brewery or fountain drink vendor could get you a suitable regulator. You could even get it from here in the states for a little extra $$ for shipping. You don't even need a diffusor since you could always build a reactor or run it into a canister filter.

The initial equipment is expensive, but in the long run it is much easier, more effective, and cheaper.


----------



## ZA_Ryan (May 18, 2006)

As I type this, I just realised that I know someone who brews their own beer. I think I'll have a chat to them about carbonation.


----------



## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Well, beer ferments itself as the yeast do their thing. Added CO2 isn't needed to make it. Bottled CO2 is usually used to pressurize the fountain tap.


----------



## apisto_fan (May 22, 2006)

ZA_Ryan said:


> As I type this, I just realised that I know someone who brews their own beer. I think I'll have a chat to them about carbonation.


haha, i know a guy who makes wine to produce CO2 for a 100 gallon tank, lol. he swears he gets better results than any commercial system he's used, and pretty great wine too, lol. he basically rigged the vent on the fermentation container to a gas separator and a diffuser, and it lasts him for a few months at a time, or at least until the wine is ready...


----------



## jower (Nov 1, 2005)

The easiest way of getting hold of pressurized co2 has to be a co2 fire-extinguisher. Ad regulator, needlevalve and maybe a solenoid... voila!


----------



## czado (May 26, 2005)

Personally I find about 2L of the standard mix per 10gal is necessary for high light, even with active reactors. As long as you stagger bottles to increase stability (I change half the bottles every week, with each mix running two weeks), care about nominal measured values instead of averages in respect to targets, and are stubborn, I don't think there's any limit to DIY CO2. I've not run pressurized though.


----------

