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CO2 Running out

bogwood said:
My system has been running for 3 months now, and all is fine.
Are there any early warning signs of when the CO2 is running out.

I have a 600g disposable cylinder from Machine Mart.


Could you advise on the regulator you have.


1. If you are running with a twin gauge regulator: Right hand gauge shows bottle pressure and the left hand gauge shows line pressure. When the cylinder pressure is dropping the needle on the right hand gauge will show less pressure than when first fitted.

2. If you have one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CO2-Adjuster-Regu ... 3a55af4729
as the pressure drops the amount of co2 bubbles being emitted from the diffuser (if you are using one) will not as many as when you first fitted it I.E less pressure = less bubbles.


Regards
Paul.
 
bogwood said:
Hi Paul.
Twin gauge, No significant change on bottle pressure, so must be Ok.
I will now keep a watch on it, for signs of dropping pressure.
Incidentally, will it drop over a few days, or will it start dropping and empty within a hour or so.

Thanks.
Alan


Alan

When the pressure starts to drop in the cylinder you should see the right hand gauge needle start to drop and it will drop over a period of time "Not Days" look at a couple of weeks or even a month (that what mine does) and once the pressure is about 10 to 5 bar then it will empty in days, becareful as some people have had Co2 dump - this is when the pressure is very low it dumps the remaining gas into the tank at one go.

Regards
Paul.
 
another tip for those reading this who do not have the luxury of a 2 gauge reg (I had a cheapo reg with no gauges on it when I ran CO2...

Lift the bottle up and see how heavy it is!
Once you have lifted an empty bottle once and a full bottle once you can judge quite well how much is left in by this method.
 
Hi,

If your using a drop checker you'll notice the co2 stability changing. If it gets to a point where you can't seem to dial it in and keep it there then your probably very close to a bottle dump.

Personally though I change mine when the pressure goes below about 40bar now. I definatly waste some co2 (probably no more than a week or twos worth though) but would rather that than suffer another bottle dump. I was lucky enough to get away with it when it did happen to me but I nearly lost my prized gold nuggett plec in the process amongst other fish. I simply couldn't replace my fish some of them are fifth and sixth generation selectivly bred and I would rather waste a couple of quids worth of co2 now than take the chance. I concentrate my efforts into using co2 efficiently, sourcing it cheaply and most of all using it safely.

I run a 250L heavily planted tank kept around 30ppm disolved co2 during the photoperiod and my bottle pressure dial tends to fall at a rate of 2-3 bar a day once it starts to empty if this helps.

Regards, Chris.
 
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