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Needle valve/bars

neelhound

Member
Joined
20 Feb 2009
Messages
169
Hi ive been running co2 for about a month and a half and i think the bottle has run out.How can i tell when the bottle is about to run out, there are two meter things one 1-160 one 1-4 so do those help with telling when its going to run out?Also ive just got a solenoid valve is it ok to have a bit of tubing between?I tried to make it as short as poss i dont know whether pressure will build up too much or soemthing? thanks
 
The 0-160 gauge will start to fall when the cylinder is getting empty. Interestingly the other 1-4 gauge will actually start rising. Not sure why but it does. When they see this people tend to change the cylinder over as it can 'dump' the remaining CO2 into the tank, gassing the fish. Personally I've run a cylinder completely empty before and not had an 'dumping' but the risk I guess is up to you :)

Sam
 
Hi,
If you have a dual gauge regulator then the one with the large numbers indicate the pressure remaining in the bottle. I suspect that the gauge that you identify as 1-160 is the one to pay attention to in this regard. Therefore as this number approaches 1.0 you can assume that the contents are being depleted. The next time you fill the bottle take not of it's present value and monitor the rate of it's decline over the subsequent few weeks. This enables you to predict and plan when you will need to refill. It may be worth having a couple of bottles if this lasts only 6 weeks or so.

You should also consider the possibility that you have a leak. Put some soapy water in a spray bottle and spray the areas of all joints and along the tubing. If you see soap bubbles forming then you'll know there's a leak at that location.

Cheers,
 
yep thanks, and i did have a gas problem as a few fish died today :arghh:
I was using a good diffuser but now im going to use the less efficient one as for a logn time that was ok, but the new one coming was probably just a coincidence regarding it coming to the end of the bottle.Is there any other way ic an be warned as i dont want fish dying again..can you get like a little alarm or saomething
 
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