[APD] DIY CO2 recipe for 20 gal tank?

["Kelleen Harris" <kelleen_harris at csumb_edu>]

Thanks everyone who replied to help me with my CO2 questions! I really appreciate it. 

I am a bit confused now as it seems that the consensus is that it would be really hard to kill fish with too much CO2 via the DIY method, and that everyone thinks that probably isn?t what happened.

I appreciate everyone sharing!
In summary:
Nick is using half the amount of yeast and a little more sugar for his 20 gal.
Vaughn is using about the same amount of yeast but twice as much sugar for a tank that is 6 x bigger
Jerry had some good advice about messing with the efficiency rather than the recipe, and SH?s advice was along the same lines (ie surface agitation, etc). Thanks for the calculator Jerry, that is pretty fun.
Stuart uses 1tsp yeast for his 50 gal. Stuart, what is IMHO?
And oh my Susan, yikes! I had seen similar horror stories on the web when I was researching how to do it, so I was careful to never block the flow!

So for those that are willing to continue on this journey with me?.

Surface agitation?.maybe that would be a good idea to do at night since that?s when the levels would have been the highest? Although I was under the impression it is best to avoid big pH swings by stopping CO2 at night. I guess surface agitation
would only release some of it, so the swing wouldn?t be as big?..?

Some more details about what my friend did in response to questions that you guys posed to me:
He removed all surface agitation and put the CO2 into the water through a powerhead below the surface. He ran it for a week before giving up and disconnecting it.

I really believe he?s a good fish keeper or I never would have encouraged him to try CO2. I?m positive that his tank was long ago cycled, and he only had a couple of (gasp) fancy guppies, two platties, and two cory cats in there. So I know it wasn?t
ammonia, nitrite, or fungus. I promise it wasn't!!! Although I have only been doing CO2 for a year, I have been fishkeeping for 20 years, so I could tell if it was some sort of regular problem.

The other thing that makes me pretty sure it had something to do with the CO2 is that all of his snails shells turned white and they all died. He had about a hundred of them! They we prolific and healthy, and not at all white, before the CO2.
Apparently it was the platties? lips that turned white, but they lived and have since returned to normal coloration. One guppy died, but its lips weren?t white. The corys were less active, but they survived. The fish were not noticeably gasping for
air at the surface.

The snail shell thing is especially interesting to me, because my snails? shells have also turned white. I have been doing CO2 for a year, and they are still living, but are not breeding nearly as prolifically as they used to. The snails look
unhappy (ie crappy). My rainbowfish are fine and won?t stop laying eggs for a second. My plants are in 7th heaven. 

Is there some supplement that we?re supposed to be adding to the water so that our snails? shells grow properly under CO2 addition?

As an additional note, our tap water is quite hard here. I cut mine with RO to get it down to 10dKH, but he was using it straight at probably somewhere twice that value. Don?t know if that makes any difference, other than not being ideal for the
plants.

Thanks a million everyone!
Kelleen (and Ben, my friend)
kelleen_harris at csumb_edu


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