hey people , whats the best kind of bottle to use for diy co2 , every bottle i use seem to leak from the thread ...... grrrrr i currently have a lemonade bottle and a vimto bottle (2 lire) and they both leak and im not getting much co2 in my tank !! !!

Ive used gatorade bottles with good success, just tighten them down well

I like using the "simply apple" bottles because they've got a square bottom and are easier to balance, and i love the juice.

I've used one gallon water bottles, 64 oz apple juice bottles, wine bottles, and regular old 2 liters. They all work, but it seems to me the 2 liters generate the most pressure and were the easiest to make.

an air tight one.... sorry couldn't resist.

I agree with the air tight one lol , I think I might just go pressurized .... Seems alot less hassle !!!!!

Odd. The only time I've had a leak from threads is when I swapped the caps from two 2L bottles. One was Coke and the other was Mountain Dew. Looked like they should have been interchangeable, but apparently they weren't!

I've also used apple and cranberry juice bottles.

if you dont want a full blown co2 tank, you can always go the paintball route.

Its not as nice... but its effective.. and filling up a paintball canister, which range for 20oz to 24oz for the larger ones cost 3-5 dollars to fill at a paintball store.
Last anywhere from 4-6 months. Of course YMMV. (your millage may vary)

i havent run out yet on a 20oz.. but i have a backup 24oz ready.. and ive been going pretty crazy with CO2 lately...

Ocean spray.

Two liter bottle for sure. Do an ebay search for CO2 bottle cap. There's only one search result and it works awesome. I use it and im running an inline atomizer with DIY co2

I think I may have swapped the caps (as dark cobra said) from a few different 2. Litre bottles so that could be it , I've brought a few more of the same bottles and set it up again. I have been looking at pressurized systems but I want the most cost affective way to set up , either buy a second hand full set up or buy individual parts. I live in uk by the way !

I suppose it really depends on your preference. I use standard 1.5ml isotonic drink bottles, from the same brand so that I can swap the caps. These bottles are also thin and tall so it has a smaller footprint. I prefer it that way because I also use more than one bottle at once; I like being able to tune my bubble rate and having staggered mixtures. Here's a pic of my setup for a 15g/60l tank:

Four bottles hooked up during photoperiod (when the sun is down the lights go on) and one or two bottles hooked up when the lights are off (but the curtains are drawn, so my low light plants can still do something). They are labelled so I know when I put together the mixture.



Close up of the connector I use on the caps (this one is the bubble counter-alcohol/slime trap). It's the standard tubing connector.


What I do is I pull a length of tubing through the hole I made in the cap, cut off the tubing to about 1cm before the cap and jam the connector in. Airtight seal without needing to use silicone sealant. Plus it makes it easy to disconnect a bottle. I use silicone tubing because it's flexible and I can fold it and use the clips in the pic to stop the gas from coming out the tube when I unhook a bottle.

so... the small your tank, the smaller your CO2 bottle then... right? kinda?