High Volume Homemade C02

[Mzungu]

Re: High Volume Homemade C02

Aww, sorry to hear that. How well does the red sea kit work?

[Ramius]

Re: High Volume Homemade C02

Honsetly, it's doing great, the kit came with a bottle regulator, which goes to a needle valve, which goes to a bubble counter and ends up in the reactor.

It also came with a c02 level indicator (thewater thing you add two drops of solution to and it turns from blue to green to yellow as an indication of the c02 level).

I'll take some pictures tomorrow but I really like it, It took a couple hours to get everything "tuned in" as far as the regulator and needle valve and all that, but as it stands now, I have it to where I crack the bottle open in the mornings when I turn the lights on, and turn the bottle off about 30 mins before I shut the lights off at night (it takes a few minutes to bleed the pressure out). Supposidly the bottle will last for around 2 years or so at the rate I'mbleeding it out, so that means it's costing me an average aof $1.25 per week for the initial two years, and 25 cents per week for each week after that. ($120 for the bottle and $15 to refill) which is cheaper than what a DIY kit costs to run (for me anyways)


Since I put that in, my plants have gone from dingy brown and falling apart/dying/getting full of holes into healthy looking green vibrant plants and... I underwent a major aquarium change today.. I sucked out all that sand, and replaced with a layer of flourite and small rocks (the dragon fish kept mookying up the water by stirring the sand) I noticed that some of the swords had roots almost 7 inches long, sweeet.

Unfortunatly this gave me a case of MTS, and the 20gallon tank I bought to temporarily house my fish has now become a permanent fixture in our bedroom. My wife took it over since I'm so "anal" about my tank and having everything set up just right, she now has her own. She stocked it with the giant snail from my tank (my kids call mr snaily) two white mollies two black mollies two red fish (can't remember what kind but they look similar to the mollies) and two blue gouramis.


When we seen the black/white mollies I thought they would look cool in eklikewhoa's pleco tank... if you haven't considered it or it's not too late.. they might be worth checking out.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: High Volume Homemade C02

hahaha... i think i am done stocking the planted tank since its a bit overstocked as is, i might replace the non-baby producing guppies with them. are they the dalmation mollies?

i am really considering pressurized co2 for my little tank as well since this diy stuff is really becoming a hassle and i have all the other tanks to worry about as well so it would be less worries for me. im still deciding on what regulator to go with. reading your post it seems that you arent using a solenoid on it which might be a bit more consistant on the on/off deal.

are you fertilizing the tank? i have noticed when i upped the co2 and starting dosing the tank i get mad growth and green! there are some plant that need trimming almost every week! maybe ill upgrade the tank size along with pressurized co2 here shortly since im running out of room for plants and cant seem to stop buying new ones.

[Ramius]

Re: High Volume Homemade C02

I don't think they would be considered dalmations since they are solid in color, but actually... I think that would be pretty cool looking to mix in with what we have, I'll have to keep an eye out for some.

here is what they look like, we also have some smaller red fish in there that look similar to them but I can't for the life of me remember what they are called (I'll find out today when I swing by the fish store)





I didn't get the solenoid for the co2 system, I'm considering it as a down the line add on, for now, the reactor is plugged into the electric strip that I have my lights on, and I turn them all on and off at the same time. Eventually I'm going to upgrade the lighting system and when I do I'll add on a solenoid then to make those two systems fully automatic.

Right now I'm using Flourish fertilizer by Seachem, it's brown and slimy looking but it seems to be helping out a lot. I'm starting to get growth from the horsworts plants, the bamboo is beginning to get roots coming out of the stalk (my wife says I can cut them and make a new plant now) and the swords are beginning to look better, I haven't had a lot of growth from anything because they have been basically reviving themselves up to now, but now that they are back and healthy looking again things are starting to pick up.

Since I put a layer of flourite on the bottom of the tank and started using liquid fertilizer I didn't put those black fertilizer tabs back in when I redid the tank bottom, any opinion on this?

When I went to look for the c02 bottle, most places were within $10-$15 of each other, what got me though is the difference in price between a 5 lb bottle and a 10 lb bottle, the 5 lb bottle was $85 (filled) I know you can get them from harbor freight for less than that, but that container comes empty too and you have to pay to fill it ($13) so it ends up being about the same price anyways. However, a 10 lb bottle was only $120 filled, to me it was enough incentive to go with the 10 lb bottle for as little as the price difference was. It's a bit steep for an up front cost (especially after you factor in the cost of the regulator/insertion system) but in all honesty, having a 99% maintenance and worry free system really is worth it. The place I got it from isn't too far away from where you work too.

Also, when you get ready to get your c02 regulator, if you don't have someone that you deal exclusively with, I recommend giving Just Fish a call in Huffman, they are really nice people and it's a great shop, she gave me a lot of information on choosing the system that I did and gave me a pretty good deal too, I know it's a bit of a drive from where you live but it might be worth it if you can save some money and it doesn't cost anything to get a quote, as far as brands go, I really like the red sea stuff, it looks good and is well made. The instructions are pretty crappy though, I tried reading the book on how to set everyting up... it was useless, I ended up looking at the picture on the box and installed the stuff according to how it looked there and ended up doing a lot better =)

The number to just fish is 281 324 2542 btw

[guppymax]

Re: High Volume Homemade C02

Mollies usually do better in higher pH water. I think you might have problems with fungus. Let us know how it turns out.

max

[Ramius]

Re: High Volume Homemade C02

oh wait.. I was talking about too many things at once.

The mollies are in the 20 gallon tank that was supposed to be a temporary house while I redid the bottom of my large tank.... but ended up becoming a permanent addition (darn that mts)

That tank doesn't have any co2 or anything like that, and the ph in that tank is between 8.0 and 8.2 (thats what comes out of my well)

It's the big tank that has the lower ph because of the c02 stuff, but there are no mollies in that one.

[guppymax]

Re: High Volume Homemade C02

Sorry I missunderstood! The mollies should be fine at pH 8.0-8.2.

max

[Ramius]

Re: High Volume Homemade C02

It's ok, Because now I know that those fish are in a good place. =)

[eklikewhoa]

Re: High Volume Homemade C02

i refrigerate my flourish and i dont think its slimey either. with i personally would still use the root tabs for the heavy root feeding plants, probably the swords it wont do any harm but if it works the sword will grow nicely! i dose my entire tank with flourish,iron, excel, and NKP and occasionally add the root tab near the nicer rooted plants.

i noticed the price difference on the 5lb and 10lb as well and with my built stand its perfect for the 5lb to be placed underneath which would be much cleaner looking but the 10lb is cheaper compared to the 5 in initial cost and when refilling. i also have a old nitrous bottle that isnt being used anymore and its still good so i might just use that, be freaking cool looking to have sit next to the tank too.

[Ramius]

Re: High Volume Homemade C02

hahahaha, supercharged fish. You could start a new trend =)