Recommendations for CO2 source

[james15]

Hello everyone! Newbie here.

Last year I switched to live plants in my established 240 litre aquarium. So far I've had only limited success with liquid carbon, so I'm now seriously considering switching to CO2 gas injection.

The question is, what's a good cost-effective source of CO2 gas? And how much am I likely to use in an aquarium that size? I suspect disposable cylinders would only last a week or two, and at around £15 each that seems like a pretty expensive way of doing it.

The industrial grade cylinders from BOC seem like a better option, but I'm assuming there's a hidden cost, as I've seen references here and there to some sort of contract but as yet I haven't found any more information on that (I'm going to contact BOC to find out more). Is it necessary to use the more expensive food grade stuff, or would the cheaper industrial grade stuff for welding be OK?

And what about fire extinguishers? That seems to be a very popular option but I can't get my head around why, as at £50+ for 2kg it seems very expensive.

And finally, any other recommendations?

 

[Jayefc1]

That is a high price for a fe try phoning around and asking for out of date ones as they are no good for any thing else and you should pick them.up from 10 to 20 pound

 

[Conort2]

That’s a lot for a fe, can get new ones on eBay for around 20quid I think.

Cheers

Conor

 

[james15]

Hmm, it seems I've been looking at very expensive fire extinguishers!! I looked at Screwfix and Machine Mart, both were £55 and I assumed most would be similar. I'll look further into that then. I've just found another potential supplier of 6kg cylinders which may prove to be very cheap, just waiting for an email back from them now.

 

[ian_m]

£10 for 2kg FE for me. Lasts about 3months on 180l tank. I expect you will get 2 months per 2kg on 240l ONCE you have mastered the extremely difficult task of correct CO2 injection.