co2 diffusers?

[kangarooooooooo]

i'm planning on adding plants to my aquarium..

can someone explain the whole co2 thing to me? i've tried looking it up and many different types of diffusers pop up, sure they look cool but what about the part outside of the aquarium? what are you putting in the water exactly?

 

[Reese299]

Do it yourself infuser

Hi Kanga,
I was looking up the same thing being a realtive newbie n00b after 20 years of fish tanks! I found this great article on-line that explains it all - and then some!

http://www.qsl.net/w2wdx/aquaria/diyco2.html

Complete with a do it yourself (DIY) guide to building one. I'm going to try it but I'm not sure about the in-the-tank part yet - I'll start with the CO2 and run it into the tank first with am airstone or similar first and see how that goes (see if the planes start to die or struggle). Leter I'll move on to add the in-tank part or make up some thing.

As I understand it, adding CO2 involves simply bubbling CO2 into the tank, sort of like an air stone with regual air, but to get the most out of the CO2, you need to expose it to the water for long - that's why some fancy infusers make millions of tiny bubbles to increase the surface area of the bubble ot give maximum exposure of the CO2 to the water.

Feel free to correct me and I hope I've helped some....