Am wondering how easy this would be.....

Hubby works in the welding industry so has plenty of acess to the bottles, valves, regulators and for refilling.

So after googling( my friend!!) and finding out that his site has the most info in NZ where would I start looking for the "instructions" to put one together?

Any help appericated!!!!

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/index.php?PG=co2-1

Biggest problems I have found are

1) Getting a bubble counter, you need to know how much CO2 you are adding so you can adjust it. I made one out of a pill bottle, it had two tubes going into it one to the bottom , one just in the top, the bottle is filled with water so you can see the CO2 bubble as it comes out the lower tube and bubbles up going into your tank via the upper tube. Getting the bottle to seal properly is the biggest issue.

2) Getting a needle valve that give you fine enough control. It's worth investing a little money in a good needle valve, there is nothing worse than not having the fine control you need.

3) Diffusers are hard to find, expensive, and to be honest pretty ugly. The first one I made by winding some air tube round a cylinder with a hole in the bottom so as the CO2 bubble traveled up it draws in water, similar to how a air uplift filter works but on a very small scale. This worked, but ugly! In the end I just feed the CO2 into the input hose of my canister filter, worked a treat and completely dissolved by the time it goes through.

4) You need to watch the pH in the tank, planted tanks tend to have pretty soft water so the pH swings round a lot.

5) The plants can grow extremely fast, but you have to have a good rich substrate and strong lights, everything in balance or you will be growing algae rather than plants.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head, since you have access to most of the stuff you will need, I really encourage you to try it out. Literally being able to see how much plants have grown over the day is pretty cool, the only down side was having to pull out a bucket of plants each week!

Thanks Zev I have read and re read that but it doesn't explain "how" to do it!!

Suphew- Would a bubble ladder type thing work( there's one on TM)?

I'm really liking the sound of having the CO2 going straight into the input hose to dissolve that way.

Where does the needle valve go?

As far as i understand I have my co2 bottle with the regulator and possibly a solenoid, with tubing to the bubble counter and then into the input hose.

Is this right???

hi ya if your hubby is in the welding industry and has access to everything then he should know how to hook up the solenoid tubing etc etc, then all you need to do is tune it to how many bubbles per minute..

Yeah he is helping me( by getting everything that I need) but I have to figure out how to apply it to fish tanks not TIG, MIG or plasma's!!

Do i have the order right for a system?

Thanks wagonman that was what i needed to see!!!

Yay can't wait to start, will give hubby a list to get from work tomorrow!!!LOL

As Suphew says, you will probably need a good needle valve, just a regulator will be too coarse when trying to tune the system.

I initially bought a cheap one attached to a regulator, but ended up getting a Tunze regulator and needle valve that gives good control.

Not looking into the DIY yeast method, just to try it out first?

I tired it on my 27L with a CO2 bell with little success. Just hooked up a 1.25L bottle to the filter outlet in my 54L this morning (had been brewing for a day or two) and I saw instant bubbles! Super fascinating, now waiting for the long term results. The Poly, Bacopa and Hairgrass were all showing little O2 bubbles coming off them, something I've never seens before.

This method is ultra-crude but it's very cheap.

SamH, I figure because I have all the acess to the parts that I need for the pressurised system why not just do it!!

This is a 4fter so want something substantial to make sure it does what it is suposed to!!

I knew I had forgotten something. You also need to put a oneway check valve on the CO2 line otherwise when the bottle runs out the tank water will drain back into your bottle.