Folken

Recipes 

I was wondering if anyone else had ever done this? I did it for a while in the spring, but kinda got bored of changing things out every 2 weeks or so.

Basically, you take one of those big plastic pop bottles, drill 2 holes in the cap. You use aquarium silicone and put 2 tubes into the bottle. An in and out. Then you hook the output tube to a small pop bottle half filled with water, with another out tube from that, to your aquarium. (Its for if you are growing live plants in your aquarium. Looks better, and more fun)

Anyways, I was thinking of recycling at least one of these devices into making a small amount of cider or something similar. We've got a box of apples, but not nearly enough for my 6g main and carboy.

Do you guys think it would be feasible to make something semi-decent with this setup?
(Of course I would clean out the bottles and disinfect them.)

RogerMcAllen

Recipes 

If you are talking about using a 2L bottle as a fermenter, just get a #2 stopper and use an airlock.

Folken

Recipes 

I meant, using what I already have. The 2nd bottle works as the airlock.

RogerMcAllen

Recipes 

Sure, as long as your bottle has an airlock you'll be fine.

Sizz

Recipes 

There's plenty of info on the planted tank forums about diy yeast CO2 for aquariums. They typically add something, i forget exactly what, to slow the rate of CO2 generation. It's easy to overload CO2 in a small aquarium and suffocate the fish, so be careful.

malkore

Recipes 

it varies on your aquarium's pH and carbonate hardness. you can have high levels of CO2 and still tons of O2 and no pH issues IF you have a lot of carbonate/alkaline hardness.

definitely 'filter' the CO2 through a bottle of water before it goes into the tank. this weird 'snot like white fluffy stuff' will form up.

When only making CO2 for aquariums you can add baking soda to the mixture to slow it down but that doesn't work well for brewing

__________________
Malkore
Primary: English Mild
On tap: Pale Ale, Lancelot's Wheat, English Brown Ale, Steam Beer, HoovNuts IPA
Bottled: MOAM, Braggot, Raspberry Melomel, Merlot, Apfelwein, Pyment, Sweet mead, Cabernet
Gal in 2009: 27, Gal in 2010: 34, Gal in 2011: 13, Gal in 2012: 10

Folken

Recipes 

Maybe that is why it tasted so awful! After I figured out that the process was basically the same as for brewing, I let my curiosity get the better of me. Never again.

Anyways, as far as actually using the setup for CO2 injection anymore, I've realized Flourish Excel will suffice for my small tanks.

You seem to understand this very well, so I'll ask my basic question to you. Do you think if I cleaned and sanitized these very well, would it work for experimenting on small projects while waiting on my bigger projects? I'm still trying to figure out what I'll do with 30 or so bottles of Island Mist. Haha. I like drinking, but boy oh boy.

malkore

Recipes 

You do not want to be doing fermentation for drinking purposes in 2liter soda bottles. Get some PET or something a little happier. Biggest issue is a 2liter bottle back-siphoning the aquarium water since its so flimsy/thin plastic.

__________________
Malkore
Primary: English Mild
On tap: Pale Ale, Lancelot's Wheat, English Brown Ale, Steam Beer, HoovNuts IPA
Bottled: MOAM, Braggot, Raspberry Melomel, Merlot, Apfelwein, Pyment, Sweet mead, Cabernet
Gal in 2009: 27, Gal in 2010: 34, Gal in 2011: 13, Gal in 2012: 10

Folken

Recipes 

Thanks. Forgot about checking this. I'm probably gonna be getting some 1 gallon or so carboys for Christmas to use for experimenting. Looking forward to it. Especially in the limited amount of space I have available, lifting 6 or so gallons somewhere high enough to siphon is "fun". XD

Mermaid

Recipes 

LOL I'm glad I'm not the only fish geek who thought of this.

Here's what I was going to try with a future batch.

Run some tubing out of the hole in the stopper/bung - to an adapter to smaller aquarium tube size (a reverse of what I use for my airation setup) into the intake for my powerhead. I would have to keep an eye on it, as I could easily flood the tank with CO2 during the height of fermentation, but after it slows down a bit - might provide some CO2 to my plants.

Flourish Excel is a good product, but when it comes to plants like crypts, or glosso, nothing beats the real deal + appropriate lighting.

Definitely going to think this out a bit - could be fun to try.

__________________
The sands of time were eroded by the river of constant change.

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Primary: Empty
Secondary: Empty!
an empty fermenter is a sad fermenter
Bottled: Nut brown ale, Bink blond clone (she's a bitter Belgian!) Belgian Wit, several other tasty beers that have since been consumed!
On deck: TBD