# Citric acid and baking soda diy co2



## jrill (Nov 20, 2013)

Depends on how much co2 you use. I'm on week three at 1 bubble every two seconds or so for eight hours a day. I guesstimate I have another two weeks left.

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## A.Arunkumar (Sep 10, 2013)

jrill said:


> Depends on how much co2 you use. I'm on week three at 1 bubble every two seconds or so for eight hours a day. I guesstimate I have another two weeks left.
> 
> Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk


Hi

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## jrill (Nov 20, 2013)

Hi

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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

My citric acid/soda system seems to never run out. I haven't seen the level of citric acid drop more than a half inch over 2-3 weeks, and the soda/water mix bottle seems to always have some undissolved soda left. I have renewed the mixes once, just to try a stronger acid mix, not because it ran out. At low bubble rates it must be good for at least 3-4 weeks. But, I'm having trouble maintaining the bubble rate, readjusting it every morning, so perhaps it lasts so long because most of the day, with lights off, it isn't working. I'm thinking of plugging the little tee fitting that is in the hose that is in the soda bottle, to see if that makes it work more constantly.


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## Fyshfur (Sep 13, 2016)

It may be there is a leak in CO2 system at some point that's causing your problem with changing bubble rates. It's pretty common with DIY set ups to have leaks, either at the bottle cap/tube interface, or any other tube connection along the way. 

There are some really neat miniature bulkhead fittings you can get that work extremely well for making air tight connections from a bottle to tubing. Meant for gas line to gas tank fittings in some model engines, the ones I've seen are plastic, made by Four Most. Not very costly, two sizes. The tubing used for the gas lines in the models is the same as the silicone version of air line tubing and either size works, though the larger one may be the better for this purpose. The smaller one is 1/8", I forget what the larger one is, only very slightly larger in any case. Packs of two.

I don't know how long a citric acid/baking soda bottle would last, but have been wanting to try it, if only because it is less messy, with no by product ( alcohol from yeast). But I think a comparably sized soda bottle would last a bit longer than a yeast bottle would, if only because the alcohol kills the yeast before it has a chance to 'use' up all the sugar, so the soda/acid mix is more efficient.


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## jrill (Nov 20, 2013)

Hoppy said:


> My citric acid/soda system seems to never run out. I haven't seen the level of citric acid drop more than a half inch over 2-3 weeks, and the soda/water mix bottle seems to always have some undissolved soda left. I have renewed the mixes once, just to try a stronger acid mix, not because it ran out. At low bubble rates it must be good for at least 3-4 weeks. But, I'm having trouble maintaining the bubble rate, readjusting it every morning, so perhaps it lasts so long because most of the day, with lights off, it isn't working. I'm thinking of plugging the little tee fitting that is in the hose that is in the soda bottle, to see if that makes it work more constantly.












Odd that yours doesn't use the citric acid up. Here's mine after 4 weeks. Acid is all gone and bottle empty. The pressure is pegged high on the gauge. It probably has enough pressure to last another week or two.

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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

jrill said:


> Odd that yours doesn't use the citric acid up. Here's mine after 4 weeks. Acid is all gone and bottle empty. The pressure is pegged high on the gauge. It probably has enough pressure to last another week or two.
> 
> Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk


Very interesting, and very different from what I see. Maybe I do have a leak somewhere, even though I have repeatedly tested it and never found a leak. Mine also never builds up pressure enough to show on my gauge. It did build up a lot of pressure back when I was just playing around with it, but never since I connected it to my tank. That also hints that there is a leak somewhere. Time to blow some bubbles!!


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## hubble13 (Sep 1, 2010)

Hmm ... mine only last 10-14 days I run 1-2 BPS but some times I forget to turn it off at night I may also have a leak some where. I'm probably going to switch back to a pressurized system soon anyway.


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