DIY CO2
- Thread starter kjfan1
- Start date
You might want to turn off the airstone. The goal here is to have more CO2 in the tank then there is in the air around us. NAturally your water want's to equalize with the air. Any sort of surface disbrance or regular air bubbles in the tank will allow excess CO2 in the tank esscape into the air comming back to equaliztion.
Some people worry about too much CO2 at night so they run airstones opposite of thier lights. I don't because DIY CO2 is hard to over do on a 40 even with 2- 2 liters.
You could look into drop checkers if you wanted to monitor the CO2 level in your tank better. although most people with DIY CO2 don't bother since you can't make small adjustments plus we are tring to go the cheap route.
Some people worry about too much CO2 at night so they run airstones opposite of thier lights. I don't because DIY CO2 is hard to over do on a 40 even with 2- 2 liters.
You could look into drop checkers if you wanted to monitor the CO2 level in your tank better. although most people with DIY CO2 don't bother since you can't make small adjustments plus we are tring to go the cheap route.
So i've been doing this for about 2 years now and decided to try the baking soda thing today since it was time to change a bottle.
I was wondering what the pH was at the end of 4 weeks so i tested some and it went all yellow so it was 6.0 or lower, most likely lower. My tap water tests at 7.6 or higher, most likely higher, so this was a bit of a surprise since my KH and GH are very high, which explains the high water pH.
I added a 1/4 tsp od baking soda and let it mix. Back to the off the top of the chart!
So in the new batch i made up i added a 1/4 tsp. of baking soda, it should give me more CO2 at the end of the 4 weeks asumming there is still sugar for them to eat, not sure how to test for this besides tasting some but i would rather not lol.
I was wondering what the pH was at the end of 4 weeks so i tested some and it went all yellow so it was 6.0 or lower, most likely lower. My tap water tests at 7.6 or higher, most likely higher, so this was a bit of a surprise since my KH and GH are very high, which explains the high water pH.
I added a 1/4 tsp od baking soda and let it mix. Back to the off the top of the chart!
So in the new batch i made up i added a 1/4 tsp. of baking soda, it should give me more CO2 at the end of the 4 weeks asumming there is still sugar for them to eat, not sure how to test for this besides tasting some but i would rather not lol.
Lol don't taste it. I don't know how to test for it either I was just going to watch and see if it started sooner or lasted longer.
I tried it as well on my oldest bottle that was petering out. I see a lot of recipes that have it in there it makes sense I guess. BTW I was using the air stone also at night and it ended up changing my PH which tells me I was losing CO2. So like stated before just best to use no air unless they gasp at the surface or something.
