• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Cannot get CO2 going again ?

mike_low3

Member
Joined
17 May 2009
Messages
35
Hi There,

I had to remove my CO2 diffuser and tubing during some tank maintenance, and now since I've re-connnected it I cannot get CO2 to run again, when I open the fine valve I get a few bubbles appearing in the diffuser and then nothing. I've checked the tubing and there's no blockages, I've checked the Diffuser and it's 3/4 full of tank water as per the instructions and no blockages, if I remove the tubing from the CO2 unit I get a small amount of pressure release and some fluid ? CO2 is definetely been released from the unit as I can hear it without the tubing attached. Any idea's what the problem could be ?
 
Mike

Mine does this when i have removed the diffuser from the tank. For the couple hours it piddles about and by the following morning is ok, glass diffuser full of water, co2 switches on and tiny bubbles start being emitted.

Regards
paul.
 
Waited for the pressure to build but after 3 hours still hardly anything, I'm lucky if I have 1 bubble every 30/40 secs ? sometimes I don't get anything for minutes, could it be the diffuser ? it's one of those atomiser one's that came with the CO2 unit.
 
Stating the obvious here, but you never know. Have you fully opened the valve on your C02 bottle itself? ;)
 
Yep, with both coarse and fine valve's wide open I'm still getting hardly any bubbles coming out the diffuser, checked the tubing and there's no blockage, if I remove the tubing there's definetely gas coming from the unit, so then that just leaves the diffuser, I'll maybe source another diffuser so I can double check.
Wanted to ask about the JBL vario, is it better to have the gas remain longer in the diffuser or is the atomiser diffusers just as good ?
 
I used to have this happen to me when I used a glass/ceramic diffusor in the tank. If I removed the diffusor when the solenoid was off, for some reason my non-return valve would suddenly stick fully closed. Disconnecting the non-return from the tubing going to the solenoid usually freed it straight away.

This may not be whats happening to you as you may not use either a non-return valve or solenoid, but its worth a try!

Dave
 
Managed to find out what the problem was, it was the diffuser, the ceramic disc is blocked for some reason, swapped another diffuser on and it's working fine now, not sure why the other one failed ?
 
mike_low3 said:
Managed to find out what the problem was, it was the diffuser, the ceramic disc is blocked for some reason, swapped another diffuser on and it's working fine now, not sure why the other one failed ?
Soak it in bleach, rinse thoroughly and replace. :thumbup:
 
i had a problem a few days ago,
my soleniod cuts off at 9 pm and everything was working fine at that point.
checked the tank the next day when the lights came on and there was no bubbles making thier way up the ladder.

i thought that the bottle had emptied as it was getting low but had still been working, managed to get another FE within a few hours and set everything up again.
Still no bubbles.
Started taing the system apart piece by piece to check for blockages, and found that the non return valve was blocked.

i think it got blocked by the co2 going through a bit above pressure a few days earlier.

But the point is, i should have checked the whole system first. Its ussually the simple things that you dont check. and a simple non return valve was the last place i expected a problem
 
Back
Top