Utilizing Carbon Dioxide for Plants or Fish

[cid]

Do any of you use the CO2 output from your fermentation to help plants or fish flourish?

Can anyone suggest some uses for the CO2?

[LWTCS]

I'm sure the African Violets want to have sex with my fermenting bucket if that's what yer asking?

[cid]

Yeah!

African Violets, do they especially require a CO2 rich environment? I'd like to use it to grow vegetables. I have an old hydroponics unit i used to grow spinach some time ago, maybe i could inject the CO2 in to the water.

[heartcut]

Most plants enjoy a little extra CO2 in the atmosphere, particularly when flowering or fruiting. The plants that I used to grow during the late 60's produced superior quality flowers if exposed to CO2 during the day while budding. Used to cut it off at night, but was using an (expensive) compressed gas bottle. Careful, high CO2 atmosphere can give us humans headaches although I think I'm adapting to it.

[canadianmoonshiner]

Not sure how extra CO2 would help fish? They "breathe" O2 just like us.

However, if you have a sour fruit mash that you don't cook or otherwise contaminate, you may end up breeding Vinegar Eels. They are great for the fish. Eels eat bacteria/mother/fish poop, keep filter clean, fish eat them then poop... round & round. Only time I've had water quality issues is when I've over-cleaned the filter.

I seeded my aquarium with vinegar eels, normally 3-4 mm long & nearly invisible. They have grown to 8-10 mm "monsters" & I feed the fish less.

[Prairiepiss]

+1 fish need O2 not CO2. But a planted tank could have some benefit from it. And a calcium reactor for a reef tank uses CO2 to break down the calcium. But there is a fine balance of needed O2 and CO2 that would be hard to regulate from a fermenter.