for those of you who don't know, dry ice is awesome. If you didn't know that then you probably also don't know that its frozen solid CO². I work in a molecular biology lab and we get shipments a few times a week that are packed in dry ice. Besides a few thousand Zebra Danios in the Matrix we have a nice little 10 gallon 'aesthetic' tank with some cheapo walmart aponogeton and such that grow fine with about 8 hours of indirect flourescent light from the cieling. In the process of playing around with the dry ice (flash freezing things, making big fog clouds, general mad scientist stuff) we put a chunk in the tank. next day, BAM! lots of growth. so this week i brought some home to my planted 35. BAM! lots of growth. The only drawback is that its not the safest bet for CO² as its really cold and can be a tad stressful on the fish. but nonetheless it works like crazy and (for me at least) is a free CO² injection system.
SO, if you don't normally get huge boxes in the mail like I do you can probably get it for free somewhere else. Ice cream distributors use it alot to ship it to stores, especially places like baskin robins or stores that don't make thier own ice cream. some meat pakers use it too, but not that often. also, you could try your local university or laboratory to see if they have any. most of the time places will just give it away as it requires a -80 C temp if you're going to keep it around for longer than a day. try the "its for a school project" if your a kid. if you have kids, ditto. if you're in that ackward age between the two, try it anyway. and if you try it, just a small chunk will do, like a pack of lifesavers size chunk will be more than enough for a 20 gallon. just make sure your heaters on....
thats just my random contribution for the day.
SO, if you don't normally get huge boxes in the mail like I do you can probably get it for free somewhere else. Ice cream distributors use it alot to ship it to stores, especially places like baskin robins or stores that don't make thier own ice cream. some meat pakers use it too, but not that often. also, you could try your local university or laboratory to see if they have any. most of the time places will just give it away as it requires a -80 C temp if you're going to keep it around for longer than a day. try the "its for a school project" if your a kid. if you have kids, ditto. if you're in that ackward age between the two, try it anyway. and if you try it, just a small chunk will do, like a pack of lifesavers size chunk will be more than enough for a 20 gallon. just make sure your heaters on....
thats just my random contribution for the day.