Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
Constructing a DIY CO2
- Cardnim (Andrew Hanley)
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In a few weeks, Im going to add more detailed info about the night-time shut off, the pressure release valve and the attachment to the reactor.
If anyone has anything else they'd like me to focus on, please let me know

Now, everyone get constructing their own! I guarantee your satisfaction levels will increase

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- arabu1973 (. .)
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- Cardnim (Andrew Hanley)
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Not too sure of the EXACT quantities, but there is an easy way to do it.
Fill the empty bottle with UNREFINED raw cane sugar up to the point where the rounded bottom stops (i.e. the bottle has straight sides until it gets to the bottom where it then curves. Fill sugar to the top of this curve, just to the start of the straight bit)
Now fill the bottle with warm water (body temperature is ideal).
Its ok to use water from the hot tap as none of this will be going into our tank.
Now screw on a bottle top and shake well.
While the sugar is dissolving, add half a teaspoon of dried bakers yeast to a measuring jug with about 100ml or warm water and a few pinches of sugar.
Whisk this by hand to get as much air bubbles into the solution as possible.
Now leave it for 15 minutes somewhere warm.
After 15 mins you should have a good bit of foam on top. Give it one final mix and pour into your 2L bottle.
If there are no bubbles on the jug after 15 minutes, your yeast is done and should be replaced.
This mix will give you a good output for about 14 days if kept at around 25C.
P.S. I dont add anything like baking soda to mine as Ive never found this to do anything. SOme people claim that it regulates the CO2 output, but I cant find any scientific reason why this should be so. It MAY prolong the life of the mix by removing some of the alcohol (which is what eventually kills the yeast in our mixes) but Ive tried my recipe with and without baking soda and there was no difference.
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- arabu1973 (. .)
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- Cardnim (Andrew Hanley)
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One of my friends who maintains a DIY CO2 setup claimed that he bought some \"lemonade mix\" stuff from the supermarket and added it to the bottle after the CO2 was done.
I believe the word he used was \"potent\", so I dont think I'll be trying it anytime soon.
Be careful if you do!! Who knows how strong it is



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- arabu1973 (. .)
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- komalley (K OM)
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Anything above ~15% alcohol kills the yeast so you've more chance of getting a bit '


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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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- Cardnim (Andrew Hanley)
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You can use the old KH/pH relationship to test it.
A good online calculator for this (and a great description of it) is at Chucks planted tank webpages here: www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm
However, this is very unreliable as it doesnt take into account whether phosphates and other such substances are in the water (and they most certainly are), and these throw off the results - hence why sometimes I was getting \"readings\" of 42ppm of CO2 (when anything above 30 would kill fish!!)
The much better way is to use a drop checker and a 4dKH solution. You can get all these from Aqua Essentials (although you can get the drop checkers much cheaper from Hong Kong if you go through eBay.
Im setting up a planted tank today, and will be taking pictures as I go. Im using one of these drop checkers so I'll try and document that a bit as well and post it to this forum.
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- goldy (goldy .)
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Nessa
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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The drop checker sounds like the thing im looking for i just started with live plants a few weeks ago so it’s all new to me a steep learning curve
Regards
LB
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- Cardnim (Andrew Hanley)
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LB: I got mine from eBay but it hasnt arrived yet, so if you get one too we can both try to figure it all out together!

I just got a new recipe for EI dosing so Ive started that this morning. How are you fertilising your tank?
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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I found these on eBay and will order in the next few days’ thanks for the info.
To fertilise the plants im using tetra plant complete substrate www.seapets.co.uk/product-details/stkcode/954292.html
I’m just getting started so i will also have to but timers for my lights and air pump in the next few days its all money, money, money...
Regards
LB
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- Cardnim (Andrew Hanley)
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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So I will start a new 1 on tetra plant complete substrate
LB
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