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CO2 diffusion for a yeast-based system

daizeUK

daizeUK

Member
Joined
18 Jun 2013
Messages
161
Location
Berkshire
I'd like to try a yeast-based CO2 system for my 120L tank and looking into diffusion methods.

I was hoping to use an inline atomiser but I've heard that yeast won't generate enough pressure to make it work. I assume an inline reactor would have the same problem.

I've been reading other posts and it sounds like a diffuser under the filter intake is the best method. I have some questions:
  1. Is it better to use a diffuser placed under the filter intake or simply stick the CO2 tube directly into the intake strainer?
  2. I've read that doing this will damage my impeller or make my filter 'burp'. Anyone experienced this?
  3. I've also read that yeast-produced bubbles have a slime coat which will muck up my equipment, how bad is it?
  4. I've got hard water and worried about small diffuser holes scaling up, any tips for keeping them working efficiently?
  5. Is there any difference between different brands of diffuser, e.g. Fluval vs Neutro vs TMC?
 
1. I run a ceramic diffuser below the spray bars (because of number 2)
2. When I tried this to get the co2 high enough it would cause the filter to burp and also there was a lot of unused c02 left in the filter, it was tricky to use co2 economically.
3. I did run a yeast based system for a short while but through a in tank reactor, worked quit well to be honest, dont know about the slime coat.
4. My tap water is definitely hard, I clean the diffuser in bleach once a month seems to work well, read recently that someone uses de-scaler as well but would like more info on this before I try.
5. the Fluval diffuser has good reviews, its what I use and have no experience of any others, 1 poster did have a lot of problems with theirs and large bubbles escaping around the fitting, I dont know if it was resolved, mine has given me no problems. Buy a second disc to swap when one becomes dirty.
 
you could try just having the co2 going directly into your filter inlet, a lot of people have theirs this way
 
Thanks for the answers.

When you say directly into the inlet, do you mean without a diffuser?
I'm thinking that a diffuser might make the bubbles smaller before they go into the filter and cause less 'burping'
 
You could have a diffuser under the intake or just have the co2 tube going into the intake with no diffuser attached. I don't have a huge amount of experience with this but
the co2 tube into the filter intake worked for me. I think it works better with a faster flow rate
 
I was using yeast + sugar nearly for a year and I will never go back.
Just off it.. to research how the system works and to have "something
better than nothing" ..it works.. otherwise it is a hustle to keep it running
with +/- stable co2 levels in tank. 125L - 2 L bottle of mix - changing every
week. Cleaning diffuser every week. Mist from diffuser will be OK
for first week (if diffuser is new) and every 1st 3 days after cleaning it in
solution weekly.. I'm glad I went through this and no matter what - I will never
do it again. plants were growing well. Algae too.
 
Thanks. There are members of my household who are strongly opposed to having pressurized canisters in the house hence yeast is my best compromise at this point.
I will add that the setup will be mostly undemanding plants and low light (30W plus reflectors over 32 gallons, 50cm deep).
Can you explain what kind of trouble you expect I will have?

(edit: I missed your post, thanks Lauris!)

My plan is to start with two 2L bottles each with a check valve fed into a Y-splitter, then a smaller bottle as a froth trap and another check valve. I hoped that this would smooth out fluctuations.
 
bear in mind, daizeUK,
you will need to design it to turn it off every
eve. And once the mix is fresh you might
need to turn it On and Off more often
(more likely when you are at home)

My daily routine was - as I'm starting my shift at 7am
I'm home early and my photoperiod started every day
at 4pm. So shortly before I was turning On the DIY CO2
and every night I was turning it off manually.
for 120L tank 2 x 2 L bottles might be too much.
you cannot add solenoid valve unless you can make
your way to secure the system and once the pressure
in bottles goes too hight when its not supplying tank it
can release the the gas automatically before the bottles
blows up (to be honest I'm not sure how many bars can hold
a plastic bottle :D )
 
If you are using undemanding plants and low light then you will have less trouble if you avoid the diy co2 altogether. I, too, started out with yeast based co2. Never again. I must have got every type of algae under the sun at some point. I had much more success with liquid carbon. It's not as good as pressurised co2 but at least it is consistent and does not encourage algae.

Do yourself a favour and keep the yeast for making pizza dough. It tastes better than diy co2 and is less frustrating.
 
squid102 said:
If you are using undemanding plants and low light then you will have less trouble if you avoid the diy co2 altogether. I, too, started out with yeast based co2. Never again. I must have got every type of algae under the sun at some point. I had much more success with liquid carbon. It's not as good as pressurised co2 but at least it is consistent and does not encourage algae.

Do yourself a favour and keep the yeast for making pizza dough. It tastes better than diy co2 and is less frustrating.
Click to expand...



ohhh.. I do understand how you feel! really!
(sorry for oftopic)
 
I've been told that it's best not to turn Yeast CO2 off at night and the livestock will be okay if it's left running. If that's not okay I could run an airstone at night?
I run my other tank with EasyCarbo and I guess I really wanted to see for myself how much of an improvement I could get with CO2. I'm planning to use both in this tank.
(I like making pizzas with it too :D)
 
After changing mix and forgetting it turn off at night in the morning I realised my clown loaches were bearly moving, laying on one side on the ground, bunch of seamise algea eaters very slow and rest of the fishes fairly poisoned. dropchecker yellow as hell. never left the diy ON for the night since... another thing - prepare to clean diffuser once a week. I just left it over night in with hydrogine peroxide. eayh.. and algae.. suffered a lot from it

erutangiS klatapaT now Free
 
Thanks for the reply, I appreciate the advice.
I've been thinking about your scenario with the poisoned fish. Your setup was tuned to produce lots of CO2 during the day and then shut off production at night, so when you forgot the CO2 levels went too high. If a setup was 'tuned' to be running 24/7 then I think this shouldn't be a problem. A constant low stream of CO2 would build up overnight so that it was green in the morning, then the plants would deplete this during the day to be blue by nightfall. This might even emulate what happens in nature better.

I'm not afraid of cleaning, I'm used to it :) Algae is a concern to me though.
 
If you search around you will find quite a few people having a few successes and mostly major failures with yeast based systems.

I spent ages investigating, thinking about using yeast as simple, easy to DIY, but in the end FE was the way to go and at £10 for 2Kg refill was a no brainer. There are no safety issues with a FE in a home environment other than it's red and will probably never match curtains, sofa's or cushions, but that's what a cupboard is for. If you have real installation problems, the FE can be located remotely, outside, in a garage and CO2 piped to where needed, just do it right or else you will get uncontrollable CO2.

The issues yeast people encountered were
- Very hard to control CO2 reliably. As majority of plant and algae issues are all CO2 related, people were either melting their expensive plants (lack of CO2) or algae coating their expensive plants & tank (variable CO2).
- Very easy to asphyxiate your expensive fish especially at night.
- Needs weekly, possibly daily maintenance.
- Easy to gas your fish/induce algae in the summer when yeast does better.
- Easy to algae coat your plants in the winter when yeast does worse in the cold.
- Be extremely careful with traps to catch escaping yeast ferment. Getting this in the tank due to say knocking bottle over will wipe out all live stock.
- Sealing the equipment. As the equipment will most likely be home made ie coke bottles & tubing, leaks, especially after maintenance is an issue leading melting plants and tank becoming algae farm.

Anyway you may get on better than previous people with yeast, let us know.
 
Thanks for the tips Ian, that's really helpful. It's good to know what the pitfalls are that I should watch out for.
I won't be using sensitive plants and I'm prepared to spend a good time tweaking the system before adding any stock. If I can't get the darned thing to work then I'd rather figure that out before subjecting fish to my mistakes.

The FE route is undoubtedly the best and cheapest but the husband has flatly put his foot down and said no. I'm pushing my luck having three fish tanks in the house right now so I'm not going to argue with him! :D
 
One thing someone did to improve reliability of yeast based system was plonk the generator(s) (fizzy drinks bottle) in a bucket of water heated by a 50W aquarium heater.

Nice consistent CO2 generation (using jelly & yeast), good plant growth, including gassing fish at night when air pump failed :mad:. Couple of issues water going mouldy in bucket due to being contaminated with yeast yuck.

However one day the heater melted a hole in the bucket, flooded the kitchen and proceeded to start melting everything else under the cupboard :bawling:.

You could buy a "proper" other half allowable CO2 set, if worried about having a FE at home.
eg http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/fluval-pressurised-co2-kit-88-p-5378.html
or
http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/tmc-v2co2-refillable-bottle-567g-p-4442.html
or
http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/dd-disposable-co2-bottle-with-base-p-650.html
or
JBL Complete Co2 Kit with Disposable Bottle U402 with Night Time Shut Off > JBL Co2 Kits and Consumables > Plantcare & CO<sub>2</sub> > Tropical Aquarium > Home > Aquajardin Limited
or
Aqua Medic Station Co2 Storage Bottle 500g & 2kg. | Swell UK
or if your tank is very big.....
45kg CO2 wheeled fire extinguisher | 45kg carbon dioxide wheeled fire extinguishers

This is my FE, discretely wife friendly hidden away in gap between wall and tank.
wp20130415016.jpg
 
I ran a yeast setup for a while, along with the other reasons not too I'll add, my check valve stuck one day from the gunk, needless to say the tubing popped off and sprayed the wall, bed, wardrobe and carpet (was a nano in the bedroom) much to my wife's dismay, I could have put together a cheap pressurised set up with the money I spent on new bedding, flowers, chocolates and carpet cleaner hire :lol:
 
Lol I'd better not let the hubby read these horror stories!

Thanks for the links Ian. I did consider the JBL M402 system but the initial price plus refilling costs put me off. I was told that a 500g canister would only last about a month on my 120L tank, at £18 a pop.
 
daizeUK said:
Lol I'd better not let the hubby read these horror stories!
Click to expand...
Do you want me to find the FE & CO2 cylinder blowing up stories as well....

Oh go on then....
http://www.taproot.com/content/wp-content/uploads/legacy/CO2-extinguisher Incident-2.pdf

And there's the Mytbuster's episodes where they put CO2 extinguishers in a fire. Normally got hot and vented via safety pressure release as supposed to and didn't even put the fire out. However putting one in a fire with the safety plug blocked, the cylinder "detonated". It did put the fire out only by blowing the burning logs all over the place. Use Google to find the episodes online.

I am sure much much much much much much more damage is done to homes by the fish tank water not being in the tank :) (oh as well as yeast reactors blowing up).

Oh, the guy that supplies me with FE's, in 25 years in the business has never heard of a CO2 cylinder exploding, even when his van full of extinguishers caught fire years ago. He has no concerns about supplying me with them to use at home.
 
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