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anyone know a good diy diffuser?

7.9K views 10 replies 10 participants last post by  whimsical mike  
#1 ·
well i need a good diy diffuser for the time being till i can get ahold of a good one anyone have any ideas? something i can use from stuff laying around the house? or from stuff you would have for tanks laying around? atm i shoved a bit of media into the end of the tube it kinda working but not making it a fine bubbleing
 
#2 ·
A chopstick. Stick the tapered end into the CO2 tubing and then cut off the rest of the chopstick so you have ~0.5'' of chopstick left. Bamboo is a grass so it is structured w/ a lot of hollow tubes running along the length of the culms, which are great for making small bubbles.

Even better is if you use the chopstick to feed the bubbles into an water circulation pump to chop up the bubbles even smaller...
 
#3 ·
chopsticks work great but the only qualm i have about them is that they clog up fast especially if you don't have a water trap running inline if youre using a diy co2 setup. the water trap is essentially a bubble counter but it helps get rid of any yeast mixture liquid which likes to form this slime thing in the aquarium
 
#5 ·
Before in went pressurized with a reactor I used a 10cc medicine syringe (walmart pharmacy for kid cold medicine). I cut it down to an inch and shoved a cotton ball in it. Worked better than a chopsticks for me.
 
#6 ·
Get a jar like a peanut butter jar or small 3-6 ounce jar of some sort, stuff it full of filter floss (polyester filter fiber or some sort of material. Cut a hole through the lid (weigh the inside of the jar with some rocks and hide it behind a plant or something) put the tube underneith all of whatever you filled the jar with and the co2 tubing through the lid of the jar, punch holes in the lid of the jar for the co2 to escape and there ya go. I also once heard of people putting a "umbrella" shaped piece of plastic over top of the co2 output tube to catch a reservoir of co2 before it bubbles and floats to the surface. However I don't think the 2nd one is very effective.
 
#10 ·
Airstone.. I use an airstone as a diffuser and it produces nice small bubbles..
You have to be careful with an airstone and CO2 - most airstones are not made to withstand the corrosive nature of CO2 and will disintegrate. Some of the higher quality airstones are more corrosive resistant, but those usually also are not the ones sold by your local pet store since they are sold mainly on their merit of being cheap....