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DIY CO2 OD

3K views 13 replies 6 participants last post by  Buck 
#1 ·
well i finally did it i found out how to OD my 50g tank with diy co2 i made up a batch of it last night 4l bottle 3cups suger 1 pack wine yeast 2 teaspoons yeast nutrient well this morning i went out befor the lights came on so i dint think of anything when i got home i say ALL my fish gasping along the surface some already dead i have a dkh5 ph6.0-6.2 WAY to much co2 i now have 1 blue ram possible 2 if it dosent turn around 2 ottos 2 rasboras and maybe a cardinal and rummy nose if they dont turn around, but i guse i got off luck considering what some of oyu have lost( hole tanks) and i only lost a fraction of my fish.
 
#2 ·
What is the normal pH of your water? I wouldn't have thought it possible to OD a 50 gallon tank with DIY yeast. What sort of reactor do you have, and filtration? Just curious.

I'm really sorry to hear about your losses.
 
#3 ·
my normal tap ph is 7-7.2 i try to get 6.6-6.8 with co2 but i must have over done it i built myself one of those inline defusers out of pvc although it is a solid color so i cant see in but i can hear that there is co2 in it most of the time then i use an ehime 2213 filter. my tap KH is 10-20ppm but for some reason bith my plant tanks are up to a kh70-90ppm i dont even add any thing in the water to rais it up only thing i can think of that wodl is the posattiun sulfat i use at 1 teaspoon 2x per week so i am going to kut it bak to 1x per week.
 
#4 ·
Sorry to hear your loss, I am surprised you were able to OD with yeast CO2! I was lucky too, since I got home at 3 pm and the CO2 was crazy! I would imagine if it was an hour later I would have lost all the fish.

I did the same thing to my 55 gallon but with pressurized CO2. Unbelievably all my rasboras survived, 1 DD angel died, and my one oto died. My pH was way too low, I had far too much CO2... I'll tell how it happened to me

I got home and the largest angel (still not full grown though) was lying down on the bottom of the tank, but just barely moving his gills. At first glance, anyone would say all the fish were dead. The pleco was on the bottom, so I immediatly got my little "net breader" out and put it in and popped the pleco in that so it was toward the top with more oxygen.

Most of the angels had lost their orientation, swimming upside down, falling to the bottom and lying down, swimming in corkscrew patters, etc... Luckily my friend had an air pump and air stones on his twenty gallon, and let me borrow them, before that all I had was my powerhead for airation which wasn't much since it was too much current for the angels.

I had to hold the angels in nets towards the top so they would get enough oxygen, and by night time one was still falling to the bottom after I let go of it. The large silver's condition had transformed from horrible (he was the one swimming cork screws...) to regular. I had to prop the black angel that kept falling inbetween some dwarf saggitaria so it would stay verticle, which is important for their orientation. I prayed it would be alive when I awoke, and it was!

These fish are now very important, and you can guess how careful I was when I hooked CO2 up again... Good luck with the recoveries, the one thing I learned was to do everything possible to help them and they might just come around.

-Tim
 
#6 ·
Originally posted by qbal18
my normal tap ph is 7-7.2 i try to get 6.6-6.8 with co2 but i must have over done it i built myself one of those inline defusers out of pvc although it is a solid color so i cant see in but i can hear that there is co2 in it most of the time then i use an ehime 2213 filter. my tap KH is 10-20ppm but for some reason bith my plant tanks are up to a kh70-90ppm i dont even add any thing in the water to rais it up only thing i can think of that wodl is the posattiun sulfat i use at 1 teaspoon 2x per week so i am going to kut it bak to 1x per week.
It should not be at all connected to the use of K2SO4.

This is the second time that I've read about KH rising with CO2 input. Someone put some effort into finding an explaination and unfortunately I cannot come up with what it was but IIRC the theme of it is that KH rising helps to balance the chemical equations. I need to locate that just so I can go back and try to beat it into my brain.

I want to ask you about the recipe that you used. In particular, the yeast nutrient, do you know exactly what is in it? I'm wondering if any of the chemicals in that might have entered your tank with the gas to change the KH, or whether it was just the CO2 itself that added to the KH.

Did adding CO2 ever affect the KH before, or did that just happen with the new reactor? I'm not sure why the new reactor would be any more efficient than the canister injection.

Have you always used this recipe with wine yeast and nutrient, or was this a recent change also?

Did you increase the volume of the mix, larger bottle, more sugar?

I am very interested in this as I am going to be doing some experiments with different recipes for DIY CO2 and if the nutrient is going to affect KH or if it travels into the tank, I want to know before I mess with my fish.

If the yeast nutrient does travel into the tank along with CO2, then the CO2 chart is much harder to use to predict what CO2 levels will be at a given pH. And, I have to wonder if fish are affected by a big change in KH all by itself.

Lots to think about here.
 
#7 ·
"pH, KH, and CO2 have a fixed relationship as long as carbonate is the only buffer present (no phosphate buffers like pH-UP and- DOWN, Discus Buffer, etc). There are some parts of the country that have high levels of phosphates in their water supply. For those cases, determining CO2 levels will be difficult, as the phosphate will throw off the pH-KH-CO2 relationship, which means the CO2 charts and calculator below won't work. Note that the commercially available CO2 test kits will also be invalidated by the phosphates" From Chuck's Planted Aquaria Articles.Chuck's Planted Aquaria

So, it is not the Potasium sulphate.

But the yeast nutrient might be phosphate. I think that is what I heard at the Home Brew place....

anona, too late in the day to understand all of this
 
#9 ·
I observe a white haze in my bubble counter. I suspect that it is the baking soda that I add to my DIY mix. At next water change I will break open that bubble counter and test the KH of that water to see if that tells me anything.

I know that something travels from the generator through the line, I had snot forming on my airstone before I set up the bubble counter. If there is no bubble counter, then that might have gone into the tank. I have assumed that it is simply yeast, as yeast is in the air always, and especially so in my yeast generator.

I don't know what the ingredients are in the yeast nutrient that was used here or if they are fish safe. I am asking questions because I want to know if it is possible for the yeast nutrient to get into the tank, or bubble counter, as the case may be. If there are phosphates affecting the KH in this tank, the KH would be meaningless for the CO2 charts.

I understand that gravel can affect KH, but I don't know if that is what happened here, that's why I am curious about the higher KH and if that was a new or old phenomena. I don't know if a pH of 6.0 will suddenly change KH by breaking down gravel, when 6.6 didn't. Maybe it could.

A phosphate test of this tank would tell me something I guess.

I know that the simple answer for what happened here is that the highly efficient reactor plus the very active yeast plus the soft, unbuffered water led to a fishkill from CO2 overdose. And that the KH was simply from the gravel. The very unlikely answer is that there was any phosphate and yeast nutrient traveling into the tank affecting the KH at the same time. I'm just wondering.
 
#10 ·
Although unsightly , the white film is harmless to fish. When I was using yeast generators the fish would even peck at it. That white slime is the unavoidable drawback to using DIY CO2 yeast mixes.

You have to just periodically clean it it up and accept it... theres another check mark in the "why I use Pressurized CO2" column. I hated the mess of DIY .
 
#11 ·
Perhaps harmless if I am just using yeast, but if I use wine yeast nutrient, how can I be sure that some of that isn't in there?

I no long have that snot in my tank, it stops in the bubble counter as far as I know.

I'm continuing the reasearch. Phosphates will show up on a KH test so a rising KH could help me to know if the yeast nutrient travels.
 
#12 ·
Nothing in your generator should be entering your tank except the CO2 that the generator is "generating"...
The CO2 over time will "carry" with it and deposit minute residue that will cling to tubing walls and eventually get into tank...or in your case the bubble counter...but that is where the "maintenace" schedule should ring a bell bro...

I used to keep 2 lines for my generator and while one was working the second was getting a soaking waiting to go to work...

No Residue ;)
 
#13 ·
You know, I have read probably 20 or more articles on yeast, and hundreds of postings, but never has anyone ever suggested that the airlines should be soaked to keep them clean of residue.

Never.

You are the first. congratulations.
 
#14 ·
:hehe:
It worked for me...always had a clean supply line...
As a matter of fact I cannot name one item within 3 feet of my aquarium that hasn't required some type of maintenance ...
Glass,lighting,fish,plants,filters,hood,generators,substrate,water...all need that TLC now and then to keep it looking and running at its best.

you sounded surprised ! :hehe:
 
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