omar

hello there has anyone made one of this for yourself cause i just did one following a video on you tube and do they really work?

jdhef

I had found a website a couple months ago that had instructions on making one with a 2 liter bottle and some yeast. The guy claimed it worked, and sounded good in theory.

sirdarksol

A few folks around here have made it. Check out our DIY section, I think it's been touched on a couple of times.

omar

i made on from yeast but no bubbles coming out yet he said that in an hour it will start generating co2 but i only see tiny buubles in the 2 liter bottle

Laelanna

My hubby has one made with sugar and yeast in a 2 liter bottle. It works really well and our plants are growing like crazy.

sirdarksol

Tiny bubbles means it's working, just not at full capacity. Did you start with warm water and a good amount of sugar?

omar

the guy said 3/4 of sugar 1 tablespoon of yeast and 6 to 8 cups of water as for the temp of the water it was about normal just a little bit warm

how did your hubby do this what were his mesurements for the water, sugar, and yeast.

sirdarksol

Sounds like a pretty good setup. A little warm is exactly what it should start at. It gives the yeast a bit of a boost. Was the yeast fresh?

Ghostfish

You can add about 1/2 tsp of baking soda to speed up the reaction time. It takes about 20 minutes to start bubbling out into the water. If you do not get bubbles in the water, you likely do not have a good seal on your 2 liter.

The recipe I found that works the best is:
2 cups of sugar
1 tsp of yeast
1/2 tsp of baking soda

Add the sugar to very warm water. Just enough to dissolve it fully. Add enough cold water to the 2 liter to bring it to close to room temp. Next mix the yeast in about a cup of water. Stir for a few minutes to get it all dissolved. Add it to the 2 liter. Drop in the baking soda into the bottle. Then top off the 2 liter to get it about 3 inches from the top. Cap it off and shake well.

Creating the CO2 is the easy part. The tricky part is getting the CO2 to dissipate into your water. I have a canister filter, so I rigged mine up to pump CO2 into the intake of my filter. It works extremely well. I have a nice variety of plants and they are all growing strong.

I personally use 2 2-liter bottles connected by a two way shutoff valve. I also have an inline bubble counter made from a 20oz soda bottle. That is for a 55 gallon tank. For my wife's smaller tank, I just use a more simple single 2-liter bottle pumping straight into the intake of a bio-wheel filter. It has work very well too. It took me a few hours to set mine up. I had hers going in about 1 hour.

omar

yeah i also have a canister filter and i was going to use it like u said too. im also going to try ur mixture also cause nothing have with mine and i didnt use any baking soda or powder also i attached a a small 1/2 liter bottle to the 2 liter so i could store the co2 do u thing that would work cause i saw it in someone else's schematics

KyWildFish

Heres a link that I think covers more than everything.

http://www.qsl.net/w2wdx/aquaria/diyco2.html

omar

thats the website that i got the schematic but without the powerhead

Ghostfish

The link above is the same as I did for the most part. I just changed a few insignificant parts of it. I used a different method for connecting the 2 liter bottles to the gas seperator/bubble counter. It is basicly the same setup.

Leaks are your biggest concern. It can be difficult getting everything airtight.

lilsoccakid

when choosing the amount of yeast, remember that the more you use, the amount of co2 will increase, but if using 1/4 tsp it will last a lot longer then using 1 tsp