DIY Co2 & BBS

[Cberry]

Greetings to all

I've been scooting along here reading watching and learning about all the methods you all use and trying my best to follow.  Here's a couple questions I have.

1.  DIY co2 I used the 2l bottle with some sugar and yeast and it has lowered the PH from about 8.0 to 7.8 in 3 days.  My question is how much is it supposed to be bubbling?  If I look in the coke bottle it doesn't look like its bubbling to much.  Can't see anything coming out of the tube that has been placed in the HOB filter.  Is there a better cheaper method?  I have a Eheim 2217 I can run it to but can’t find anything on how to do this.  I just recently saw EK's ingredients for yeast and will be trying that next but still curious what type of bubbling I should see.

2.  Baby Brine Shrimp.  I have convict fry and angel fry and their spawning again.  Although harvesting and hatching the BBS isn't difficult it seems like I might be doing this for a while.  Do the Hikari first bites work as good.  Is there anything else I can use like worms or something that requires less daily involvement?  There was a wise person on here who questioned whether I wanted to raise angelfish ( Brownsnoutuk) or not probably should have taken that advice but my kids are loving it.

Ferts and lighting - has anyone tried these pond (safe for fish) fert tablets from Home Depot.  They are very cheap compared to LFS ferts and claim to last about a month?

As always all advice welcome.  I must say this is the friendliest group on the net.  Thanks to all!

[Somefishguy]

Re: DIY Co2 & BBS

convicts will be fine with the first bites

[Brownsnoutuk]

Re: DIY Co2 & BBS

lmao.. wise....hahaha


Hikari first bites are ok to use, but you want to feed BBS aswell. What size tank do you have the angel fry in? You'll need to do a lot of waterchanges if its a small tank.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: DIY Co2 & BBS

With the diy co2 you could get an airstone to diffuse it some and position that by you intake tube or set up a second 1L bottle with water halfway and push the air tube into the water and it will bubble up and then have a second tube at the very top going into the tank.

With the pond ferts I think it would be hard to gauge how much to use in a smaller tank....you could find the contents and possibly list them and I am sure someone can help you.

[Obed]

Re: DIY Co2 & BBS

for your angel fry, NOTHING works as well as bbs..... there are several things you can use as a substitue, but none will give you the results that bbs will.... you will get faster growth rates and healthier fry... they will be less prone to disease and infection (provided you do your bbs right and keep up your water changes) you can freeze your excess bbs and use that if needed... be sure to siphon out any uneaten bbs after 10 minutes..you can use micro worms in addition to, or instead of bbs in the first week, after the second week vinegar ells... but you can not do as well with anything else as you can with BBS  PERIOD....

[PhishPhreek]

Re: DIY Co2 & BBS

You didn't mention what type of yeast you used in your DIY CO2.  If it sits on the shelf long enough it could be dead.  I use beer yeast from one of the brewers catalogues and it works fine.  I believe ther are a couble of home brewer supply shops in town.

Somewhere in these forums is a lot of DIY recipies.

There are a lot of live foods you can grow for your fry but I have not found any that are as easy to produce in volume as BBS.
When they are big enough to eat dry food I use a mixture of golden pearls, decapsulated BS eggs and ground shrimp powder (from the spice section of your grocery store) It's easy to overfeed dry food so be sure you do your best to keep the tank clean.

[Cberry]

Re: DIY Co2 & BBS

Thanks everyone.

I will get sthe specs on the pond ferts and see what ya'll think.

I'm going to stay with the BBS for the angels and they are in a 55g right now with the convict fry same size.  

Maybe I missed it but how much bubbling should I see out of the 2l for the DIY.  Would this be bubbling (fizzing ) like a freshly opened coke or much less noticeable?  Does anyone have a DIY set up on the NW side of Houston maybe I could look at?

[Anonapersona]

Re: DIY Co2 & BBS

You wont' see bubbles, really, just a foaminess in the coke bottle. You should see bubbles come out of the line in the tank, however. If you have the tube in the BACK of the HOB filter, then most of your CO2 is probably being lost in turbulence as it returns to the tank. First, run the line straight into the fish tank and put the end about 4" below water. You should see a bubble now and then exit the line, wait about 10 minutes for pressure to build up before you decide you have a problem.

If you see no bubbles, you probably have a leak at the reactor, where the tubing comes through the lid, or the tubing itself is leaking. Be sure tubing is as short as reasonable, as regular tubing is porous to CO2. I am fond of "Liquid Nails" to seal reactor connections, it is sticky enoguh to seal while under pressure, clean the connection with alcohol first, then goop it on. You may see bubbles start soon after if the line is still in the fish tank.

Next time you mix it, you might add a teaspoon of baking soda (not baking powder) to the water, if you are using bread yeast. Bread yeast likes baking soda. Wine yeast does not. DO NOT open an exisitng bottle of mix and add baking soda to it --- you will get an explosion of stinky yeast water when the soda hits the now acidic water. Been there, done that.... yuck. Wine yeast can handle that acidity, bread yeast needs help from the baking soda to raise the pH to give it a headstart.

I no longer have DIY mixes but when I started with plants I did a lot of experimenting with different things, and kept records of what worked and what didn't, tracking Bubbles Per Minute ouptut of each mix. I eventually started making Knox Blocks gelatine cubes to slow and extend the sugar burst and used either wine yeast alone or bread yeast + baking soda.

The wine yeast (champagne) was a bit foamier and that was an issue sometimes -- must have a bubble counter/scrubber to clean yeast "snot" from gas and help contain foam-ups. All that also introduces more spots to leak, so it can get involved. i had fun wit the science of it, until it got to be a pain. Then I went pressurized.

[Cberry]

Re: DIY Co2 & BBS

Got it.  Good info and thanks for the baking soda tip.

[Anonapersona]

Re: DIY Co2 & BBS

One other vital thing.. always be certain that there is no water in the tubing from the reactor to the tank. Just tap it back to wherever it came from.

What can happen is that at the start, when there is CO2 in the line but little pressure, the CO2 gets absorbed into the tank water (perfectly, total absorbtion) and without pressure pushing the gas, the tank water will climb up the airline tubing as it absorbs the CO2.

At a critical point, after it goes over the edge of the tank, gravity gets involved and it may draw even more water by siphoning -- adding pressure to the reactor. Then when the reactor gets going, it only can build up a certain PSI pressure. If it has to push back many vertical inches of water in the lines it may not have enough PSI to actually get into the tank as well. Or, if the seals are weak, you may get a small leak that just bleeds off pressure. Or if the seals are very weak, they may rupture and then you get tank water siphoning through the break, draining your tank to the level of the tubing.

Somewhere on the internet I saw a wonderful experiment.... they filled airline tubing with pure CO2, clamped the top to seal and hung 5' vertically with the end in water. The idea was to see how far the water would climb as it absorbed the gas, with the expectation that at some point it would stop, reflecting some saturation point. The result was that the gas climbed the entire 5' stoping only at the clamp. So, beware of having the gas connected but not running, for tank water may climb all the way back to your reactor, whether it is below the fishtank or not.

[Cberry]

Re: DIY Co2 & BBS

put a bubbler on it and dropped line in the tank looks like it is bubbling good thanks