A little advice here regarding CO2 systems.....

I recently became a member and no, I do not have any tanks at the moment. I usually like to do a fair amount of research before taking the plunge, and I need a little advice from those of you who are more advanced. It's my opinion that a lush, heavily planted tank makes for a terrific looking setting for some of our natives. In that light, I'd like to know who has a CO2 injection system, which brands are well thought of, and why did you choose the particular system that you did? Thanks in advance for your indulgence.

my 2 cents (please note that this advise is worth very close to what you paid for it.)

I have 2 planted tanks

125 gal here are stats

125 gal
2 eheim 2028 pro II
1 fluval 404

Lights:
304 watts (2.4 watt PG)
11 hour photo period

CO2 injection

Weekly 50% WC

Following dosed at WC

Calcium sulfate 9 tsp
Epsom salt 6 tsp
Potassium Nitrate 1 1/8 tsp
Fleet 1 ml

I dose trace once per day

Fish list
Orange spot sunfish 6
Assorted shiners 5
Fat sleepers 3
Speckled madtoms 2
Olive nerites (snails) 100

Substrate:
2” of florite covered with 1” of small pea gravel

Water temp = 66 - 70 f

here are a few posts with some picts

http://forum.nanfa.o...owtopic=301&hl=

http://forum.nanfa.o...owtopic=291&hl=

http://forum.nanfa.o...wtopic=1068&hl=

I have had good success with this tank but it is extremely high tech and high maintenance.

my 40 gal in my opinion is a miserable failure, dont know why, I have the same regimen for water changes and fertz (scaled down)

this summer I plan on going with a "low tech" tank.

dirt under the gravel (dirt supplies carbon and most of the fertilizers)

and see how that works.

I will post more later

I don't use CO2 injection and feel that it is a poor choice for the beginner as I think it makes for a lot more work (plants grow faster, need more nutrients and more maintenance).

You may be interested in my thoughts on this from a previous post of mine:
http://forum.nanfa.o...h...post&p=4940, as well as the rest of that thread, which was titled "planting new tank".

Here are two low-cost options for you. I have used both.

A DIY yeast fermenter made out of soda bottles works very well for small systems (up to 30 gallons on one fermenter).

Here is something else I have tried:



I made a small modification so that I could attach airline to it, and I drilled a hole in the top of my canister filter and epoxied a check valve into the hole. About once a day I gave the thing a blast - it took about a day for the gas pocket to be completely absorbed. This worked pretty well on my 110 once I got the bugs worked out of the system.

Here are two low-cost options for you. I have used both.

A DIY yeast fermenter made out of soda bottles works very well for small systems (up to 30 gallons on one fermenter).

Here is something else I have tried:



I made a small modification so that I could attach airline to it, and I drilled a hole in the top of my canister filter and epoxied a check valve into the hole. About once a day I gave the thing a blast - it took about a day for the gas pocket to be completely absorbed. This worked pretty well on my 110 once I got the bugs worked out of the system.

Mr. Irate,

Your solution using the CO2 cartridges looks really intriguing. Can you give me a little detail as to the modification enabling the air line attachment? I notice that you say it work(ed) pretty well once you got the bugs out of the system. How come you don't use it any longer? Were the "bugs" a real p.i.t.a.? Thanks again!!!

Mr. Irate,

Your solution using the CO2 cartridges looks really intriguing. Can you give me a little detail as to the modification enabling the air line attachment? I notice that you say it work(ed) pretty well once you got the bugs out of the system. How come you don't use it any longer? Were the "bugs" a real p.i.t.a.? Thanks again!!!

I don't use it any longer since my wife's favorite fish loves to munch on plants! But the modifications were fairly simple, although the CO2 "blaster" was of different manufacture from the one shown here. Since the nozzle of the blaster is not designed to accept aquarium airline tubing, I had to take off the existing nozzle and glue in a piece - I think it came from an airstone or something - I used epoxy to make sure it wouldn't pop off or leak. The problem I had at first was that under pressure the airline would pop off the nipple (another piece taken out of an airstone) at the canister. The result of this could be pretty disatrous! So I replaced the nipple with a check valve, also epoxied into place. That took care of problem nicely. Also, I had to find a way to regulate the amount of CO2 dissolution. Now, the canister I was using was not my main filter, but a clear household water purifier (I snagged 4 discontinued display models for a buck each) - you can still find 'em at wal-mart and such, I think. Instead of using it in line with my main canister, I split it off with a tee (before the main canister) and attached a ball valve in front of it to regulate how much water went through it. In this manner I was able to find a flow rate which produced the desired level of dissolved CO2. ALso, since the inlet and outlet of the CO2 canister were both at the top of the canister, I had to actually install it upside down so that the gas wouldn't just blow right out. I could have used a drop tube so that the outlet was at the bottom, but I was lazy and just used it upside down. So the place where I glued in the check valve was actually on the bottom of the canister, which was on top after I flipped it end for end.

It is very easy to overfill the canister and blow CO2 directly into the tank - about a 1/2 second blast is all that is required to fill it up. It is not too difficult to imagine how this system could fail - you have water under pressure which is held back only by epoxy and a $3 Whisper check valve. I never had the thing spring a leak but the potential is there. Anyway, this is just what I did with stuff I had on hand, so your solution will of course vary. I think on a smaller tank you could have a simple "diving bell" type arrangement. There are lots of possibilities - the fun is in devising your own system!

What size aquarium are you planning on setting up?

Just a quick update - I just saw some of these CO2 blasters at Wal-mart, in the gun cleaning section (it's a gun cleaning tool too!). They were also selling 25-pks of the CO2 cartridges for about $10. If I remember right, each cartridge lasted me about a week.

Also, they sell CO2 tanks for paintguns - there might be a DIY project in that!