Pressure on yeast

blue_martian

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Hi all,

Sorry if this has been addressed previously, if it has been I couldn't find it. I've been looking for information about the effects that built up pressure has on yeast.

I have your typical diy yeast based setup with a newly made diffuser based on Toms design (thanks Tom). But my issue is that my powerhead is a not so great one by 'Red Sea', it pumps o.k, but you can't turn it off otherwise you have to literally go into the tank and move the impeller by hand to get it to start moving again.

So to stop the co2 at night I installed valves onto my yeast containers and at night close them.

What I don't know is if the built up pressure overnight may have an effect on the yeast (like killing them), I actually like this setup cause in the morning when I turn my co2 on there's a bunch of built up co2 that piles into the diffuser and really kind of jump starts getting co2 into the tank.

I'm just wondering if this setup may be shortening the life of the yeast and making me have to replace them more often then I would have to otherwise. It seems at about 10 days or so I need to redo the canister (1 liter bottles)

Thanks for any insight on this.
 

Biollante

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Exposions in the Night!

Hi,

With do-it-yourself CO2, I would not turn it off at night. My main concern is the pressure building up and blowing alcohol, sticky water and yeasty beasties all over the place. :eek:

If CO2 build-up is a concern, run a little air pump and stone on a timer overnight.

My neighbor modified an old glass pressure cooker looking thing for his bioreactor, I do not know how much pressure he manages, but I suspect it would burst my soda bottle arrangement. I doubt any pressure you would build up would harm the yeastie beasts before bursting the bottle. ;)

I might also add, before you develop my bad habits you may wish to consider CO2 | Rex's CO2 For The Planted Tank and use glass juice bottles.

By the way, I have had a bottle or two blow there tops, I must say the Loud Creature I share my space with was particularly loud on those occasions.

Ten days on a one-liter bottle isn’t too bad. :)

Biollante
 

essabee

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Ranchi, Jharkhand, India.
Before going pressurized, I needed to find out if I would go the CO2 way; and having a few large planted tanks I need something big with all the options that pressurized CO2 system gave. So I built a system which if you are interested you could study - http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/diy-aquarium-projects/45030-co2-madhatter-s-diy.html

It will allow you to store the gas at night without any blow ups. I used the system for 2 years continuously without problems.
 

Tug

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Hi B/a,
"Moonshine is always better under pressure, but it might blow." - I will rearrange the powerheads to run the CO2 at night. It will help a lot when the babysitter is here all week. Just set it on a timer and go, brilliant. :rolleyes:
Biollante;43033 said:
Hi,
With do-it-yourself CO2, I would not turn it off at night. My main concern is the pressure building up and blowing alcohol, sticky water and yeasty beasties all over the place. :eek:

By the way, I have had a bottle or two blow there tops, I must say the Loud Creature I share my space with was particularly loud on those occasions.

Ten days on a one-liter bottle isn’t too bad. :)
2bps for 10 days is the best I've done. I'm now counting down the days at 1bps. I cheated by feeding it today, but would like to find a way to keep the 2bps for longer then ten days. Champaign yeast, 1 gallon cube, protein added to the mix haven't helped longevity as much as I hoped.
 

Tug

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blue_martian;43032 said:
... can't turn it off otherwise you have to literally go into the tank and move the impeller by hand to get it to start moving again.
So to stop the co2 at night I installed valves onto my yeast containers and at night close them.
Until recently, I let mine gas off by pulling the line (added a quick connect) at night, but I haven't found it increases longevity of the yeast. In the morning i just repressurize it with a breath into the container. This has stopped any explosions though it seams not to add to the time between new batches.

Biollante;43033 said:
My neighbor modified an old glass pressure cooker looking thing for his bioreactor...
It would be great to have neighbors like the two of you. Sounds like something out of the Syfy original series, Eureka. Just curious if you know, how long before you're neighbor has to restart their batch of yeast and if the highest CO2 production lasts longer then 10 days, what's the trick?
Tug;43037 said:
Champaign yeast, 1 gallon cube, protein added to the mix haven't helped longevity as much as I hoped.
 

blue_martian

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good to hear my little yeasties should be ok. I've actually been blocking off my air tube for probably a year now so I'm not too worried about the bottle blowing. I figure it'll probably blow the air tube off its fitting before anything nasty happens.

Essabee that sure is one heck of a setup you have going on. wouldn't it have just been easier to go the pressurized co2 route (and cheaper in the long run). You must have a lot of space available.. great innovation though!

So do you guys think that going to a 2L cannister should last for 20 days or provide 2x the co2 for 10 days? (Assuming the same mix ratio as my 1L mix)
 

Tug

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Assuming the same mix ratio as my 1L mix
Just curious, what is your mix and bubble rate? Maybe I could learn something from you. :p
blue_martian;43092 said:
So do you guys think that going to a 2L cannister should last for 20 days or provide 2x the co2 for 10 days?
I have seen an increase in the amount of CO2 when I increased the volume of the reactor. At what point the reciprocal relationship ends I don't know. I do get 4bps in about 3 litters of mix, but only for 10 days. If you're interested I opted for a wider container rather then one thats deeper. CUBITAINER- 1 GALLON, WINE, FERMENTERS- SECONDARY at The Grape and Granary.

Longevity may be more about the mix we use to keep the yeast viable over a longer period of time and I still am working on that relationship. I know a diet high in carbohydrates (empty calories) is bad for yeast, just as it is for us. They need minerals and B vitamins. Even nitrate from the tank water is good for yeast. I've been working on this angle, but haven't come up with a batch that lasts longer then 10 days.
 
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Biollante

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SyFi Network, Too Tame

Hi Tug, All,

My life is too strange to make it to syfi network, Biollante the evil plant monster versus Godzilla the big stinky lizard is actually somewhat tame compared to the life of my alter ego. :rolleyes:

My question though is how well do you actually know the people living around you?

I have lived many places, places most have never heard of, around the world and I have never had a hard time finding people who garden, keep fish, aquatic plants or dabble in hydroponics. The desire to keep and raise plants and fish seems almost universal. :)

I have another neighbor, perhaps not as much of an oddball, who keeps Koi, beautiful, rare Koi. He has beautiful artwork, some thousands of year’s old depicting people keeping fish and yes, wait for it, aquatic plants. Did I mention my non-oddball Koi keeping neighbor flies his fish around on a private jet?

Around here, it is an affluent community of somewhat older, rather accomplished (that explains why they are always trying to drive me out) people, I suspect some of the pursuits here strike many as ‘exotic’.

So, my bigger-nut-case-than-I-neighbor, who keeps a 150-gallon, to die for, heavily planted tank on eight two-liter bottle do-it-yourself carbon dioxide system. The aforementioned object of your curiosity, the glass-pressure-cooker-looking-device-what-has-a-fancy-scientific-name provides an 80-gallon nicely appointed planted tank all the carbon dioxide it requires.

My bigger-nut-case-than-I-neighbor says he uses some exotic wine yeast combination that he restarts every week, but thinks he could easily go two weeks.

My bigger-nut-case-than-I-neighbor suspects, as do I, that you are probably starving your little yeastie beasties to death, which seems kind of mean, for, "one who cannot love her smallest creations, cannot claim to stand in front of Nature", at that low a bubble rate a two-liter bottle ought to go a month.

I think I lost track of what I was on about, :eek: what having to go talk to that bigger-nut-case-than-I-neighbor of mine.

Oh Well.

Biollante
 

blue_martian

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Hi Tug,

The mix I'm using right now is new for me so I don't know yet about the longevity, I just found it on some site that somebody swore by.
It's just:

1/4 teaspoon of yeast (i'm just using bakers yeast).
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 cup of sugar.
1 liter of water

I make sure to fully activate the yeast for 10 min before I add it to the mix.
The recipe also indicated not to mix up the yeast, simply pour it in last and that's it. The person that posted the recipe indicated that it was a good mix for longevity.. so we'll see I guess.

Unfortunately I don't use a bubble counter yet but I can tell you that the addition of baking soda provided noticeably more co2 than yeast alone especially for the first few days (to the extent I didn't actually block my line because I was actually concerned about it bursting or blowing the line off)

I'll let you know about the longevity of it, I'm only on day 6 right now, guess I'll need a bubble counter though to know much of anything useful :(

On a side note, I just added in my brand new hydor koralia 1... wow these little pumps can really move some water. My little co2 bubbles are all over the tank:D

Cheers,
Blue
 

Tug

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Feed me

Biollante;43115 said:
So, my bigger-nut-case-than-I-neighbor, who keeps a 150-gallon, to die for, heavily planted tank on eight two-liter bottle do-it-yourself carbon dioxide system. The aforementioned object of your curiosity, the glass-pressure-cooker-looking-device-what-has-a-fancy-scientific-name provides an 80-gallon nicely appointed planted tank all the carbon dioxide it requires.

My bigger-nut-case-than-I-neighbor says he uses some exotic wine yeast combination that he restarts every week, but thinks he could easily go two weeks.
Just a few observations, volume does seam to provide more bang for the buck (at least thats what she said). It does not seam to address the question of longevity (what I said). As biollante points out, keeping up with their appetite is key.

I found this quote to be helpful and if you follow the link it has a good explanation of what to feed yeast other then just sugar -
"When you just add sugar and water to yeast, they are essentially starving to death. However the enzymes for converting sugar to ethanol are still in the cell and will work for a limited amount of time. Since the cells do not have what they need to make new enzymes as cells starve/run out of enzymes the culture produces less and less CO2."
More information on DIY CO2 can be found at Nyberg Yeast Ppt Presentation

On a side note, a bubble counter is mostly useful at keeping yeast from traveling into the tank IMO/IME, but it gives a ruff measurement we can talk about. The real question is how to get CO2 to the plants. The koralia is a great addition. Keep us up on how long the last batch of yeast lasts.
 
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blue_martian

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that's a pretty interesting little power point there. The recipe sounds interesting, but it sounds like you've used it and you're not seeing any more longevity than just a sugar mix?
 

Tug

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This is my first go around with this recipe. It's also my first time using a DIY Bio reactor. Until now I was duped into the small reactors from the lfs that show how much sugar to add to the bottle. At least now I know why they're not often recommended. There expensive and worst of all they require little thought. I guess that's also why they're popular. Even the guy who sold me mine made a funny face as he suggested it. Sort of like, here find out for yourself.
blue_martian;43151 said:
The recipe sounds interesting, but it sounds like you've used it and you're not seeing any more longevity than just a sugar mix?
Yes and no, but that's why I'm interested in how long your batch will last. Nyberg's ratio of sugar to water does not work as well for me. Fermentation slowed after the first week. I found a longer lasting fermentation with one sugar for every three water. Her idea of continuos fermentation does improve the start up time, but still needs some fresh yeast, just less of it. On a side note, I have started to play around with a yeast nutrient called Fermaid K to see what it does for longevity and output.
 
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Tug

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Yeastie Beasties

Well I went to a winery today and had a chance to speak with Jason, the wine maker (does not keep fish). His first comment, maybe I should get pressurized CO2. :rolleyes: I thought that was telling. Yeast, it would seam are a lot of work. The rest was explained to me as the haze brought on by several glasses of wine set in and goes something like this; yeast do not use nitrate, but do use ammonium. My simple brain thought that one was as good as the other. Not true. Ammonium good. Nitrate not. One other slight misunderstanding is that it's not protein but amino acids that are often used to feed yeast.

Tara Nyberg's recipe never mentions the type of yeast, but her yeast stops growing at 10% ethanol. Wine yeast can live in ruffly 25% which would allow for more sugar in a recipe using wine yeast.
 

Biollante

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Tug;43171 said:
Well I went to a winery today and had a chance to speak with Jason, the wine maker (does not keep fish). His first comment, maybe I should get pressurized CO2. :rolleyes: I thought that was telling. Yeast, it would seam are a lot of work. The rest was explained to me as the haze brought on by several glasses of wine set in and goes something like this; yeast do not use nitrate, but do use ammonium. My simple brain thought that one was as good as the other. Not true. Ammonium good. Nitrate not. One other slight misunderstanding is that it's not protein but amino acids that are often used to feed yeast.

Tara Nyberg's recipe never mentions the type of yeast, but her yeast stops growing at 10% ethanol. Wine yeast can live in ruffly 25% which would allow for more sugar in a recipe using wine yeast.


Hi Tug, Blue, All,

As a general nut case lover of do-it-yourself almost anything, I grow a good percentage of my own food, make soap, wine, beer, bread and on and on, I encourage diy CO2, aquarium building, substrate making and so on, but there is a reality, a trade-off, what is your time worth and are you just fooling yourself on the savings. :)

I fully accept that my diy CO2 tanks are not really all that cheap over time. I use plain old baker’s dry yeast.

For not very much more than I spend, my bigger-nut-case-than-I-neighbor uses some high-end yeast, or really yeast combinations for his diy CO2 setups. I also know that he uses some (a very small amount) amino acid stuff, he gets at a health food store.

I tend to go with the (cheap) protein powder mix I get at WalMart on the theory that well, proteins are made of amino acids and if I paid any more for the stuff, I would not be able to afford to live here.

For the record, I also toss in a glop of Grandma’s Molasses.

I have heard of folks adding a couple of drops of three or five percent ammonia (no additives), I have never done that or as far as I know, seen that done, just heard tell. :rolleyes:

Biollante