# 5 Gallon Bucket DIY Yeast CO2



## Cydia

Hi there everyone. My name is Shawn and i just wanted to take the opportunity to thank this community in my first post. This community is archived with some amazing information and im sorry for abusing the search system for the past few months.

I have a 55 gallon tank and have been looking for a cheap and easy way to add CO2 to my planted tank. After some research i found out that 2L bottles wont be enough to get me near the desired ppm.

Now what i ended up doing was creating the same system in a 2x5G buckets with 20cups sugar, 10 teaspoon yeast and 2/3 warm water ( this is ~20 liters worth per bucket) and ran them both into a 140 gph power head at the bottom of the tank to break up the bubbles and right above a 300gph power head spreading them through the tank, causing about a full circle before surfacing.

Now i think this system is working well due to my PH doping. Over the last 3 days my PH has dropped from 7.6 to 6.8.

Now my first question is, is this even gonna work at such a large scale or am i going to have a huge mess to clean? How do i really measure success besides waiting for plants to grow? Is the PH drop too quick or not enough for success? Can a PH drop like that happen from DIY Yeast CO2 setup?

Any help is appreciated and Thank you all again

-Shawn A.


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## emc7

pH drops with any CO2 addition. There is a kH/pH chart to tell you how much CO2 have. Here's one. http://www.gpodio.com/co2_chart.asp Even if it works, you will cleaning up a mess, lol. Any yeast culture will eventually need to be flushed and replaced when the alcohol content gets so high it kills the yeast. Using beer (brewer's), wine or champagne yeast (get them from home brew stores or the internet) will give the culture a longer life compared to bread yeast. 

I don't know anyone with DIY this big. If they need more then 2 or 3 2 liter bottles, most people switch to tanks. Good luck and keep us posted.


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## egoreise

My mom made a much smaller co2 system for her 85 gallon tank and it seems to be plenty enough...


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## BV77

Flourish excel can help add carbon to the tank also. Read the back of the bottle at the fish store and see if you might like to try that. Don't overdose, it can kill vals and some other plants.


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## Cydia

I cut the setup down to one bucket as the PH continued to spiral down. After running one for ~14 hours i have a stable PH with about ~30-40ppm according to the chart.

I regularly use Flourish and API CO2 Boost and will upgrade to a full CO2 setup asap but for the time being i think my stony day with a drill and a couple buckets was a slight success.

Anyone know of a way to create a blow off valve for a bucket?!? lol

-Shawn A.


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## emc7

I'd try pvc. You could put a bulkhead in the lid with a small, rigid piece sticking out. Once you have a little piece sticking up, you can put an end-cap on it and let fit and gravity hold it down or use some weak adhesive that will fail under pressure. You might want to tie the cap down with string or something to keep it from flying too far.


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## Cydia

Soo I've been running one bucket for about a week now and i can say one thing.

Plant growth is absolutely amazing. Algae has propped up on EVERYTHING, so i used this as a excuse to upgrade from Marineland LED & 2 x 24" T8 to a 48" 216W (4x 54W) T5 HO. I've also found a CO2 Tank and a regulator that i will be purchasing come next payday (if anyone has some affordable suggestions or would like to sell me there setup let me know  )

For anyone that that's still interested,

When one bucket is running on full blast releases about 100-140PPM, I've regulated using a valve and seems to keep a steady 25-30PPM (this douse spike depending on if i stir the mixture or not).

-Shawn A.


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## Cydia

My plants are starting to pearl 

not the best looking plant but its still amazing


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## Fishy Freak

Photo not showing for me


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## Cydia

should be fixed picasa to the rescue


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## Fishy Freak

Yep showing now.


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