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Re: Apparent O2 shortage, need help!!

Matt, 

My condolences go out to you. I feel horrible when I lose a fish due to 
something that was not beyond my control. I'm sorry I can't help with your 
problem, but just wanted to share my method for dealing with yeast mixture 
potential problems.

Unfortunately, I prepare my mixture much the way I cook (I don't measure and 
it's a different recipe every time). For this reason, I need a valve on the 
line, and depending on the age or potency of the mix, it has to be adjusted. 
At night, when I turn the CO2 off, I completely tighten the valve, preventing 
CO2 (or goo) from the bottle going into the tank, or tank water siphoning out 
in reverse. Since there is some gas loss through the line and valve, this 
could be sufficient at times. But as a precaution, in case the pressure gets 
too great, I loosen the top on the bottle to let the gas escape. This is a 
nightly ritual, regardless of potency. (For instance, if the temperature were 
to rise for some strange reason, like the heat pump going awry, it would 
cause the brew to create more gas, causing a god-awful mess.) This is a bit 
of a pain, but done routinely at night feeding, and light turnoff shortly 
after, it's standard operating procedure. This would not prevent an accident 
from happening during the day, of course, but I sleep better at night.

I have considered a suggestion from another member, that is, allowing the gas 
to flow into an upside-down jar affixed inside the tank, and allowing it to 
disperse over the course of the day.  This would require some experimentation 
to discover the correct size jar to find optimal rate dispersion, etc. but 
would totally eliminate the possiblity of any accidents. Even if the jar 
became disturbed or tipped over, the gas would escape in one huge bubble and 
nary a fish would suffer.

Sylvia


<< After having many of my fish for several years, through thick and thin, 
more
 than half of them met their ends last night, due to the contents of both of
 my 2 liter yeast reactors being sucked into my tank by the filter.  I had
 the tubes for the CO2 placed next to the filter intake, under the foam
 prefilter.  The prefilter got clogged, and both of my 2 liter bottles were
 crumpled like a ball of tin foil, ejecting their contents into my tank,
 effectively killing two-thirds of my beloved fish.  All my fish were in the
 best of health, not having had any disease outbreaks for about a year, and
 all were very tame, eating from my hands.  :(  Now I have a tank full of
 white-fungus-covered plants and few fish.  I never thought it would happen
 to me, despite the many posts I had read about the same thing happening to
 others.  I figure the best thing I can do is share my experience so that
 this calamity of mine might save someone else's fish, spare their owners the
 guilt, and perhaps make me feel better for my foolishness in not heeding the
 advice of others at the expense of my fish.  Please don't repeat my dumb
 mistake.
  >>