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Perils of Plastic CO2 Containers



I just read Roger Miller's post about DIY CO2 containers, including the 
reference to David Webb's problem with glass containers.  Plastic is not 
without its troubles, as I recently found out.

I use a power head with a sponge filter in my planted tank.  I had been 
running DIY CO2 into the venturi without trouble for quite a while but was 
unsatisfied with the large size of the discharged CO2 bubbles.  I routed 
the CO2 airline under the sponge to the input of the power head and got 
much tinier (almost invisible) bubbles.  I was delighted.

This worked well until my sponge clogged.  I was horrified one morning to 
see that the power head had produced sufficient suction to collapse my 2L 
bottle and suck the yeast/sugar solution into the tank.

The result was very cloudy tank water and fish gasping at the surface.  
Many of the fish appeared near death.  I did 3 massive water changes 
(about 50% each) which temporarily reduced the cloudiness.  After a few 
hours, the cloudiness was back(!) and the fish were again gasping at the 
surface.  Using lots of airstones and churning the water with the power 
head allowed all of the fish to survive until the filter cleared the tank 
(about 10 days).  No apparent damage to any of the plants, and once the O2 
situation was taken care of, the fish didn't seem bothered by the yeast.


Paul.