# baking soda and vinegar CO2 generator?



## wizzin

Has anyone experimented with a baking soda/vinegar drip CO2 generator? I read somewhere about someone making one where they used an IV drip emitter to control the vinegar drip to 1 per second or something.

The other DIY CO2 generator idea was a decomposition generator. Using organic matter in a closed container. The decomposing materials also generate CO2.

I would imagine, while both would produce CO2, the quantity and speed of the production would be unstable and uncontrollable.

I'm just curious if anyone has tried either.


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## Kayakbabe

You'll probably get more methane gas than CO2 for composting. As well as other mystery gasses like traces of hydrogen sulfide (prob good for your tank, but would acidify beyond what CO2 would do)...etc.. I would veto that idea right off the bat.

Or maybe I just to quantitative. I want to know what is going into my tank, so I can adjust it if things aren't working out right.


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## wizzin

Kayakbabe said:


> You'll probably get more methane gas than CO2 for composting. As well as other mystery gasses like traces of hydrogen sulfide (prob good for your tank, but would acidify beyond what CO2 would do)...etc.. I would veto that idea right off the bat.
> 
> Or maybe I just to quantitative. I want to know what is going into my tank, so I can adjust it if things aren't working out right.


Yeah, the methane part is a little bit of a problem.

Anywho, about the vinegar contraption. I read that they (folks who grow plants for "recreation") disolve baking soda in water in a container, then drip vinegar in to the soda to produce co2. any thoughts?


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## aquanut415

because of the high surface area of the baking powder will react too quickly with the acid for our purposes. meaning you will get one big puff of co2, then nothing till you add more baking soda. 

for "recreational" plant growing this will work OK cause terrestrial plants don't fight off water born algae, but we are trying to maintain a steady level of dissolved co2 which lasts the entire photoperiod to prevent algae from getting a foot hold.


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## wizzin

aquanut415 said:


> the surface area of the baking powder will react to quickly with the acid for our purposes. meaning you will get one big puff of co2, then nothing till you add more baking soda.
> 
> for "recreational" plant growing this will work OK cause terrestrial plants don't fight off water born algae, but we are trying to maintain a steady level of dissolved co2 which lasts the entire photoperiod to prevent algae from getting a foot hold.


so dissolving the baking soda in water and dripping one drip per second of vinegar wouldn't stabilize the co2 production?

BTW, I'm an aquarium guy, not a "recreational plant grower" who is looking for another DIY method of CO2 production. Currently I use the old yeast/sugar mix for CO2. I'm just searching for alternatives. I like the idea of generating something vs buying it bottled, which has lead me to explore other means of producing the gas.

As a side note, my looking around lead me to this site:

http://www.co2boost.com/home.aspx

It's worth mentioning that this stuff is essentially a mushroom spore "spawn" in mushroom compost. 100% organic CO2 production. Now, this stuff is used for open air plant growing environments, where the "other" gases are simply either consumed or dispersed. I don't know how something like this would work in the aquarium, but I intend to build similar contraptions on some spare tanks I have setup to see what happens.

Note also that the boost buckets are good for 60 days of constant CO2 production.


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## jaidexl

The CO2 Boost kit is over a hundred dollars and the refill bucket is almost $100 before taxes, that's over $400 a year if you run a timer/solenoid to make it last for the maximum 90 days. A complete pressurized CO2 system costs about the same up front ($150-250), give or take, costs around $11 to refill every few months or more, and produces a steady supply of CO2 where CO2 Boost states "there is no definitive answer" to how much CO2 is being produced, and being that it's a living organism, the consistency is probably variable. 

I'm waiting for a better option than pressurized canisters and yeast mixes, but I don't think that's the answer. :icon_frow

If you plan on making your own and it works, I'd be very interested in seeing how it's done, so keep us posted. :thumbsup:

Have you found any info as to what actually goes into the contents of the bucket, is it simply compost?


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## jaidexl

wizzin said:


> so dissolving the baking soda in water and dripping one drip per second of vinegar wouldn't stabilize the co2 production?


This sounds possible to me. I'd like to see someone try it, maybe I will someday if ever have a tank with no livestock that it can be tested on.


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## aquanut415

wizzin said:


> so dissolving the baking soda in water and dripping one drip per second of vinegar wouldn't stabilize the co2 production?


i cant say for certain, but im pretty sure it won't. 

i think the problem is that you are assuming that the acid is the limiting reagent in this reaction, and its not the case. the acid only degenerates the bicarbonate into co2. you need to find a larger source of bicarbonate that will not be immediately and entirely exposed to the acid and find a way to put a controlled amount of acid onto that bicarbonate over a long period of time.


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## wizzin

jaidexl said:


> The CO2 Boost kit is over a hundred dollars and the refill bucket is almost $100 before taxes, that's over $400 a year if you run a timer/solenoid to make it last for the maximum 90 days. A complete pressurized CO2 system costs about the same up front ($150-250), give or take, costs around $11 to refill every few months or more, and produces a steady supply of CO2 where CO2 Boost states "there is no definitive answer" to how much CO2 is being produced, and being that it's a living organism, the consistency is probably variable.
> 
> I'm waiting for a better option than pressurized canisters and yeast mixes, but I don't think that's the answer. :icon_frow
> 
> If you plan on making your own and it works, I'd be very interested in seeing how it's done, so keep us posted. :thumbsup:
> 
> Have you found any info as to what actually goes into the contents of the bucket, is it simply compost?


The best guess is that it's S. rugoso annulata spawn and standard mushroom compost. S. rugoso annulata spawn sells for $20 a bag which would probably last a year or two, and the compost is essentially wood chips and sawdust or wheat straw. You're essentially growing mushrooms. The co2boost guys figured out how to spawn the shroomies without them producing "fruit" to give away the secrets. Or so I read. The bucket is a bucket with an air pump on it.

I'm going to try both of these concepts on 2 spare 20 gallons I have. I plan on posting the results.

Oh, and I never meant that the co2boost product was a solution, just that I intended to try to replicate what they did in DIY fashion to get the same results for WAY less MOOLA


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## jaidexl

Good deal. 

I still can't entirely rap my head around what aquanut is saying, but I'd still like to give the vinegar thing a try just for the sake of having something else to fool around with. I'm having an awful time finding an IV flow control that can be ordered by an individual. I wonder if an irrigation drip emitter would work, I found one that has a pressure range of 7 to 50psi, that should give some room to play with a gravity feed I'd guess. Maybe add some control to the drip with one of those cheap tubing pinches they market for CO2 control in the aquarium. That's only a few dollars on the shopping list, some tubing, a few 2liters, vinegar and BS, and a check valve or two and the experiment should be in motion.


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## dmbProducts

*baking soda, vinegar....*

Suggest if you are on a tight budget, maybe spend about 7 dollars for the "REFILL" packs for this system;
http://www.petsmart.com/product/ind...&origkw=co2&kw=co2&parentPage=search&keepsr=1

All you then need is sugar, water, bottle, hose, reactor.

refills from petsolutions
http://www.petsolutions.com/default.aspx?ItemId=15517690&EID=NX15517690&SID=NXTG


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## jaidexl

But that's just a glorified DIY contraption. The refills are overpriced yeast and baking soda. Although, dropping in preformed tablets would be a heck of lot easier than activating yeast every few weeks.


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## aquanut415

jaidexl said:


> I still can't entirely rap my head around what aquanut is saying, but I'd still like to give the vinegar thing a try just for the sake of having something else to fool around with.


i was trying to explain (obviously very poorly :iamwithst ) why you can't use a solution of water and bicarbonate to react with a drip of acid to create co2 in any appreciable amount.

systems similar to the ones you guys are investigating are already or were already in use a few years back. one was a glass vessel with a chunk of bicarbonate stone in the bottom. acid dripped very slowly onto the stone and released co2. the gas escaped the vessel via a airline tube and went into the aquarium.

the reason this is different than the ones you are describing is cause the source of the bicarbonate has a different amount of surface area exposed to the acid at any one time (much less in this case than the ones you guys are experimenting with).

ill try and find pics of the older german/dutch systems i remember seeing years ago in a Baensch (sp?) atlas VOL 1.


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## Ransom

If you're adding vinegar to a baking soda solution, I think the amount of liquid in the container will continually increase. You'll need some sort of automatic draining and top-off system to remove the excess "spent" solution and add new baking soda. The thing would probably work best if it were being stirred as well.


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## psybock

As far as the baking soda and vinegar idea, my only issue is if there is enough pressure in the vial, will it not push the liquid up into the aquarium? I ask this because I worked at a petstore where we used baking soda to euthanize fish. However, one time we had an african cichlid that wouldn't die despite the amount of baking soda in the water. 

We couldn't flush him (against policies I guess for invasive species protection) and we could loose our jobs if we used bleach. So we added some vinegar to see what would happen and the resulting shock killed him in less than a minute. Cruel I know but he beaten savagely (almost completely missin his tail, flesh and all).

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that the resulting foam is causing a major shift in PH and that could be deadly if it reaches the tank for any reason...

Just a though, abiet long and storylike thought...


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## jaidexl

Ugh, I'm so glad I have a real LFS that medicates sick fish rather than disposing of them. Couldn't you have simply smashed their heads and got it over with?


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## mistergreen

sounds overly complicated... I'd stick with yeast.


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## jaidexl

I think I have to agree. After about ten minutes of reading other forums, I think I'll leave this one to wizzin.


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## essabee

I think it can be done easily and with needle valve controls which would work. All you need to do is use Kipps apparatus or adapt the principle thereof.


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## psybock

jaidexl,

Well, normally we would try and treat the injured or infected fish, however, when the fish is too far gone, we are to use baking soda to kill them (supposed to be less painful). Any other method of euthenasia (flushing or playing wack-a-mole with them) could cause us to loose our jobs. I nearly got fired 2x for flushing them...

Anyway, just giving the cautionary flag of what happens when vinegar, baking soda and fish collide...


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## jaidexl

It's cool, I can see why they need certain rules. I just have issues. :icon_wink


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## wizzin

essabee said:


> I think it can be done easily and with needle valve controls which would work. All you need to do is use Kipps apparatus or adapt the principle thereof.


Nice. That's pretty much what I had in mind. Sort of a "flow through" for the acid so that the soda doesn't sit in a pool of acid. I think the block of bicarbonate ideas are a better method than dissolved too.


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## Kayakbabe

I would think.. that the baking soda thing was actually kinda painful for them. It would completely change the passive and active osmoregulation on the gill membrane surface. One of two things would happen. 1. their gills would swell up and effectively suffocate the fish or 2. The bicorbonate and changing pH would have cause massive leaking through their gill membranes, and the poor fish would die of massive fluid lose. Either one sounds horrible on the surface. 

I did field work where we collected freshwater fishes to put in a museum collection. Normally I would just plop the fish into 90% ethyl and get it over with. The alcohol (with formalin added later) kept their colors pretty much intact and preserved them pretty well. But in the middle of grad school PETA decided that was not nice to do to them. So we had to put the fishies on ice until they were comatose.. then plop them in the alcohol. It took way longer for them to die when they were cold since they are cold blooded animal. Go figure. Sure didn't seem 'nicer' to me. (oh yeah, they weren't so well preserved either... which kind defeated part of the purpose of collecting them).

Personally if it were me.. I would just want you to plop me in the alcohol. That way I could enjoy the effects and pass out before I drown instead of shivering to death until I was numb then put me in the alcohol. I certainly wouldn't want you to force liquids into me until I die of congestive heart failure or pleuresy. I definitely don't think dying from swollen lungs would be comfortable either. 

Come to think of it.. I think getting blindsided might be the best of all.
I do whop my fish on the head before I eat them (the ones I catch) or the ones I euthanize. It just seems like the least of all the options available, thus the best choice.


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## Kayakbabe

My brain is not able to sleep tonight. the sodium bicarbonate euthanasia by that pet store really has me thinking... about why and how it would kill the fish. So I pulled out my "physiology of fishes" and found some good papers on the net. This in a nutshell is what I found.

Freshwater fishes absorb water through their skin and they respire through their gills. They absorb water through their skin because their bodies are more saline than the surrounding water they live in.

High alkalinity / saltwater fishes actually have to drink water instead. Because the high salinity environment actually pulls water out through the fishes skin (the reverse of how low alkaline / freshwater environment fishes work). Salt water fish don't absorb water, they have to drink it instead. (they have some pretty incredibly efficent kidneys to help get rid of the salt in the water they drink)

Some fresh water fish are helped by adding a little salt to their tanks, it helps them generate a mucous slime coat. the salt kind of 'draws' the mucous coat out. (over simplification true, but it illustrates what I'm trying to say). These fishes are generally from more alkaline waters (water that has some salts in them). 

Some freshwater fishes like catfishes don't/can't form protective slime coats very easily or at all. A fish like this exposed to salinity will really react to it. 
Not being a scientist anymore.. I can say that it appears they are suffering pain by doing that. 

Fishes that do not have a drinking mechanism such as fishes that are from low salinity (or low kH gH waters or low to no salinity), when you put these fish into a more alkaline or saline environment, these poor fish would actually dehydrate.

The sodium bicarbonate would cause dehydration in the fresh water fishes being euthanized. But some fishes would die faster from it.. like tetras, discus, etc. While some fishes that have mechanisms to cope would take a lot longer if at all such as african cichlids, etc.

Of course there is the whole excess Na+ uptake and exchange and interactions with muscle cells and stuff. Could be causing the poor fish to have coronaries.

So maybe these sodium bicarbonate soaked fishies are really being turned into fish mummies.


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## Kayakbabe

Say for saltwater fishes... do they just put them into distilled water? 
This would make those fish retain water instead. Kind of the opposite effect, but hey it would be faster than sodium bicarbonate on them.


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