"muddyfox" wrote in news:1140859011.662014.37940
@t39g2000cwt.googlegroups.com:

wrong before I get it right. I was going to get a small CO2 biosystem
(yeast and sugar) which comes with a little plastic maze thing which
the bubbles slowly work their way through giving off the gas into the

Sugar yeast definitely works, but it's not very effective for large tanks.

The bubble ladders you are describing work okay, but Red Sea makes a
powerhead CO2 diffuser called Turbo CO2 that is extremely good at
dissolving CO2 quickly for tanks up to about 40 gallons. I like their
system a lot more than the old school bubble ladders.

When you place the Red Sea Turbo CO2 powerhead near the bottom of the tank
it produces a very fine mist of minute micro-bubbles that spend a long time
swirling about in the water column. In my experience I see obvious
accelerated growth within a day of the sugar/yeast mix kicking in.



water. I haven't got room for CO2 cannisters and I would be worried to
leave them alone with my four year old who adores playing with dials
and levers. He would be utterly atracted to the sight of a regulator.

It's hard to compete with this system for larger setups. They can
generally be built into good wooden tank stands with doors you can easily
put a simple pad lock on to be extra safe. They are still a lot more
expensive than the sugar/yeast method, but the CO2 injection is stable,
adjustable, and longer lasting.


I didn't know that you could get CO2 supplements - are these tablets
which give off CO2? I'm not sure how steady the CO2 would be from a
biosystem so maybe if the rate dropped I could help things along with
supplements.

I use Seachem's organic CO2 supplement called Excel for exactly that; it's
part of their Flourish line. I use it in very small tanks and when my
sugar/yeast reactor mix is getting towards the end of its usefulness and
before a new mix starts to kick in. You'll go through A LOT of this stuff
though if you try to use it as the main source of CO2 in any decent sized
tank.