carbon dioxide
Hi, only joined yesterday & my cylinder ran out today, so interested in dumping along with comments on the original problems.
My 5kg cylinder gauges did give me a couple of days warning but my problem was being in a new area & not knowing where to refill. My first two posts were about this. However as I have a solenoid & a ph controller if the cylinder was to dump wouldn't the controller shut off the co2 when the ph dropped or would it not react quickly enough?
The original post was worried with safety so unlike some of you I do like to have two gauges so I can see the tank pressure. This is usually 60 bar & as the tank is rated at 200 bar this is less than a third of its maximum. Unless you let the tank get very hot (a solenoid is not going to do that) there isn't any great issue with safety.
I don't understand the need for a wet & dry with a planted tank as the plants will do most of the filtering. I think the smaller or should I say slower the filter the better, let the plants produce the 'clean' o2 instead of the potentially contaminated stuff that we take in ! - Anyway too much 02 can cause trace & fertiliser element problems as it makes some of them unusable to the plants.
With regard to Sams advice on FE tanks. My 5kg tank is exactly the same height as his 2 kg just slightly larger diameter but still goes under a RIO 125 so I would prefer that option. The larger you go the less you have to change & the cheaper per KG it is to fill, I have just paid £30 today for a refill. How much do the aquarium retailers charge for 0.5 KG ? more than £3 I would suggest !
If you can get a 5kg cylinder in the correct colour (grey) with a proper gate type valve top fitting would be the best option in my opinion. A guy on e-bay used to have stacks of them at bargain prices. I don't like the idea of taping the trigger handles together, apart from naf they get in the way. If you have to do it that way then when it's empty why not put a proper valve on the top before refilling.
If your worried about safety try using a correct sized spanner instead of an adjustable !(sorry pet hate!)
Hi, only joined yesterday & my cylinder ran out today, so interested in dumping along with comments on the original problems.
My 5kg cylinder gauges did give me a couple of days warning but my problem was being in a new area & not knowing where to refill. My first two posts were about this. However as I have a solenoid & a ph controller if the cylinder was to dump wouldn't the controller shut off the co2 when the ph dropped or would it not react quickly enough?
The original post was worried with safety so unlike some of you I do like to have two gauges so I can see the tank pressure. This is usually 60 bar & as the tank is rated at 200 bar this is less than a third of its maximum. Unless you let the tank get very hot (a solenoid is not going to do that) there isn't any great issue with safety.
I don't understand the need for a wet & dry with a planted tank as the plants will do most of the filtering. I think the smaller or should I say slower the filter the better, let the plants produce the 'clean' o2 instead of the potentially contaminated stuff that we take in ! - Anyway too much 02 can cause trace & fertiliser element problems as it makes some of them unusable to the plants.
With regard to Sams advice on FE tanks. My 5kg tank is exactly the same height as his 2 kg just slightly larger diameter but still goes under a RIO 125 so I would prefer that option. The larger you go the less you have to change & the cheaper per KG it is to fill, I have just paid £30 today for a refill. How much do the aquarium retailers charge for 0.5 KG ? more than £3 I would suggest !
If you can get a 5kg cylinder in the correct colour (grey) with a proper gate type valve top fitting would be the best option in my opinion. A guy on e-bay used to have stacks of them at bargain prices. I don't like the idea of taping the trigger handles together, apart from naf they get in the way. If you have to do it that way then when it's empty why not put a proper valve on the top before refilling.
If your worried about safety try using a correct sized spanner instead of an adjustable !(sorry pet hate!)