# CO2 method pics



## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

so i decided to give my tank a good cleaning and got some dry ice and kill all the nasty..snails, mites, and unfortunatly my spring tails.. (just ordered more tho so they are on the way) anyways after i used a big cup and let the dry ice sit in the tank for a few hours.. doing its thing i decided to let it sit over night with a little extra dry ice in the film canisters that are sitting around the tank..










just figured i post a picture of it, i get off work in a hour or so and will be home to see if it maybe perked up my plants in the processs as well./..3rd shift rambling sorry


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## tkromer (Dec 20, 2007)

That looks pretty neat with it in the film canisters and all. What goes in the tank now that it's "clean"?


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

haha yeah "clean" i still see snail them little F*****S well i wanted to do some rearainging as well, im gonna put my M. Baroni back in there after the night stay in hotel tupperware


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

yeah i just went to the local petco and got some dry ice to do the same thing with my 2 of my tanks which are driving me crazy with snails.


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## flyangler18 (Oct 26, 2007)

> yeah i just went to the local petco and got some dry ice to do the same thing with my 2 of my tanks which are driving me crazy with snails.


I need to CO2 bomb too- the imi tank is a breeding ground for snails right now. Argh.


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

i dont know if maybe i didnt do it right as its hard to make a exo terra air tight, but i still have snails i just pinch them out when i see them now. snails i would imagine just go under the water when the co2 is present


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## Marty (Feb 27, 2004)

It's tough to get rid of snails. Esp that you have to take care of the eggs too. I'd use copper sulphate in the water (in the substrate that is), then I'd seal the whole tank with tape. I see you have screen top. CO2, always finds a way to escape, it might be a good idea to keep topping off the tank, by standing a container with dry ice on top of the tank and having it overflow directly into the tank and thus overflowing the tank constantly keeping it full with dry ice for at least an hr or two. I wouldn't use the tank to house any frogs and then a week or two later I'd repeat the treatment again to knock off any hatched snail eggs. After the 2nd round, I'd pump the water out and replace it few times to dilute the copper sulphate...after that I think you should be OK.

it looks like your CO2 dissipated and didn't even harm the snails


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

the top is clossed in no screen on there and i tried to tape as much up as possible but there are weird agles around the black edgeing that make it impossible to tape. i think ill try what you said about the coper sulfate and maybe put some silly putty or non drying clay around the edges i cant tape. that should keep it pretty air tight


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## somecanadianguy (Jan 9, 2007)

get one of the huge yard trimming garbage bags , place tank inside and dry ice seal up like a big baloon , way easier than trying to fix each gap
craig


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## Marty (Feb 27, 2004)

Brilliant Canadian idea, hopefully you can lift that tank. Definitely 2 or 3 person task.


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

somecanadianguy said:


> get one of the huge yard trimming garbage bags , place tank inside and dry ice seal up like a big baloon , way easier than trying to fix each gap
> craig





:shock: i think we have a winner


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## somecanadianguy (Jan 9, 2007)

dom said:


> somecanadianguy said:
> 
> 
> > get one of the huge yard trimming garbage bags , place tank inside and dry ice seal up like a big baloon , way easier than trying to fix each gap
> ...


cool what did i win??? lol
craig 
marty not really my idea i was shown that method 18 yrs ago for putting 4ft high plants and using botled co2 for spidermites, being from BC a "few" people indoor garden lol :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: same as im a huge fan of safers soap for bugs , ya wouldnt wanna "eat" some nasty chemicals either

oh yea exos have legs kinda tilt tank slide bag under about half way , then tilt other way pull bag out other side easy one man job :lol:


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## AlexF (Sep 26, 2007)

I've had similar slug problems in both my vivs and my greenhouse.

The best option for me has been to pick them up one by one every day until they are completely gone. A piece of apple attracts every slug and picking them up is easy. You just have to do it on a regular basis to get rid of the young slugs before they are able to lay eggs again.

I have never tried the CO2 approach but guess that you have to do it for a long time and keep on adding CO2 or the plants will start producing O2 for the slugs to survive.


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

somecanadianguy said:


> dom said:
> 
> 
> > somecanadianguy said:
> ...


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## a hill (Aug 4, 2007)

While you're at it you could also hook up a simple DIY co2 2l to the bag and get even more CO2 in there..

http://www.plantedtank.net/articles/DIY-Yeast-CO2/7/

Just use more yeast and sugar for an over night CO2 gassing :wink: and use warm water to get them going faster.

-Andrew


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## rjmarchisi (Feb 16, 2004)

instead of lifting the tank up, why dont you have the bag over the top and seal the bottom?

what do i win?


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

a hill said:


> While you're at it you could also hook up a simple DIY co2 2l to the bag and get even more CO2 in there..
> 
> http://www.plantedtank.net/articles/DIY-Yeast-CO2/7/
> 
> ...



i like this idea i may try this one in the future


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## a hill (Aug 4, 2007)

dom said:


> i like this idea i may try this one in the future


Its really simple and cheap. Most of the stuff should just be around the house.

To speed up CO2 production I would take the suggested yeast ammount and use at least double the amount. With that make the water more concentrated with sugar and use nice warm water (70s+ would be great)

-Andrew


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## andy83 (May 31, 2006)

Where do you guys get your dry ice?


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

just typed in dry ice and my city in google


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## Fey (Nov 21, 2006)

I tried it last week and sealed the tank for a day.. didn't seem to do much tho hopefully plants benefited.

back to the apple method :lol:


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## nburns (May 3, 2005)

I am glad that you seemed to have had luck. I too tried it once and it really didn't seem to do much to the snails that I had.

Nate


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## sounddrive (Jan 4, 2007)

> craig
> 4ft high plants and using botled co2 for spidermites, being from BC a "few" people indoor garden lol same as im a huge fan of safers soap for bugs , ya wouldnt wanna "eat" some nasty chemicals either


yeah "eat" some chemicals huh :wink: ive used co2 too control spidermites in my indoor garden as well to take care of what the neem missed. 
that said i just did 2 of my tanks a few days ago with dryice to get rid of grindal worms worked pretty food i used the bag method for my exoterras.
steve


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

Does anyone else have experiences with the dry ice treatment? I'm planning on gassing my viv in the near future to get rid of slugs and snails. I've been doing some experiments, prior to the gassing to see how long it takes to kill the pests (I imagine it will eventually kill the plants). So far I know that both snails and slugs are killed by 16 hours of 100% CO2 treatment, but not 4 hours...


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## Invert (Aug 20, 2008)

Just a quick FYI, be careful with the copper treatment, since a lot broms are very sensitive to higher levels of it.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

12 hours of CO2 killed 2/2 slugs and 5/6 snails and 1/1 begonia. Has anyone who tried this notice negative effects on their plants? And did you leave the lights on?
Thanks,
Mark


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## basshummper (Jan 13, 2008)

maybe the dry ice froze your begonia. did you record the temps?


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

I used a source tank of liquid CO2. The temps in the chamber couldn't have deviated by more than a degree or two. I might try again with some left over tomato seedling I have and see how long it takes to kill them with 100% CO2.


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

the only thing that happened to my plants was when the leaves were to close to the cup and froze the died. other than that mine were fine


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

sounddrive said:


> yeah "eat" some chemicals huh :wink: ive used co2 too control spidermites in my indoor garden as well to take care of what the neem missed.
> that said i just did 2 of my tanks a few days ago with dryice to get rid of grindal worms worked pretty food i used the bag method for my exoterras.
> steve




whats this bag method you speak of??


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## Bcs TX (Sep 13, 2008)

I did the dry ice method myself (had ants, snails slugs) they cremated my jewel orchids. I had to tear down one tank, removed all substrate and plants, dry iced it with 5 lbs and sterilized my plants with the 5% bleach solution. Then I replanted my tank adding new substrate and sterilized plants and gave it another dry ice dose. I covered my tank completely with seran wrap each time and put the dry ice on a metal trivet. The plants did ok but it melted what was left of my jewel orchids and my African Violet, anywhere the dry ice touches plants they will get a little leaf burn. No nasty critters so far (been a couple weeks now). My new planted tank did the same thing but did not remove the plants (did it twice as well). All is fine with it no critters.

I attached some pics, look like something from a science fiction movie. I had to use the blue seran wrap, it seems to cling better.

-Beth


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## JoshH (Feb 13, 2008)

Well I tried one pound of dry ice in my 60 gallon plant tank last night. It had lots of slugs and whiteflies. Sealed the top completely and left the tank for about four hours with the lights off. When I opened it the CO2 was so strong even near the top that breathing it hurt. 

The goods news is that it killed all the inverts/pest in the tank. But it also must have been too much for certain plants. My shingle plants and some of the others are rapidly turning black and dying today! The dry ice was isolated from the plants in a bowl of hot water so it can't be temps that did it. Could too much direct CO2 kill plants like that?


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

The bugs die from CO2 poisoning, not lack of oxygen. It seems that plants are more tolerant of CO2 than animals, but they still need oxygen. It might help to leave the lights on when treating with CO2. You can see from my post below that in my experiment the begonia died before my snails did. Keep us updated on how everything turns out! 
-mark


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## Ulisesfrb (Dec 8, 2008)

I wish I had seen this post earlier. I just did it on my 18" cube exo and a 10gal tank. I must say, it's a pain to keep the CO2 in that exo. It seems that the method failed to do anything on the exo, I will try wrapping it next time before putting the dry ice in it. The 10gal at this point is hard to tell, the targets were mites and the occasional slug. 

Ulisesfrb


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## porkchop (Aug 29, 2005)

Just iced 4 of my tanks today as well, should have used CO2 search here instead of dry ice search, it resulted w/ nothing. Then when i was done, i found this...Sheesh!
Anyway, i used a # in each 18g. w/ large container of hot water, it billowed really well, completely filling tanks and finding any leaks at top, after an hour of sitting, i opened to find slugs and snails all dead, but realize the eggs are probably still there, will do it again in 2 weeks, to make sure.
put a fan on it to clear out, now just letting them air out for a few days probably. How long till plants start to show damage? Anyone !
Well i guess i will find out....


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## JoshH (Feb 13, 2008)

I think alot of what happen had to do with me not leaving the lights on and that my tank can be sealed up airtight. I'll report back on the plants in a day or so.


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## Bcs TX (Sep 13, 2008)

All of my broms and moss are ok, even my saligenella and a begonia. 
The jewel orchids and african violet melted.

Hope that helps.

-Beth


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## frogsanddogs (Jun 21, 2008)

How does volume of dry ice convert to time measurements and how do you tell what you need to kill snails in a tank? I have a 12x12x18 exo that has snails in it and I despise them so much I will likely break down the whole viv to get rid of them, but would be interested in trying this if it is likely to do the trick and save the plants.


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## CHuempfner (Apr 27, 2008)

Does leaving the lights on during this process have to do with photosynthesis to keep the plants alive?? Or why else would you leave lights on?


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

CHuempfner said:


> Does leaving the lights on during this process have to do with photosynthesis to keep the plants alive?? Or why else would you leave lights on?


That's the theory. Whether or not it works has yet to be determined.


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