# New to C02



## pinchez (8 Oct 2020)

I'm not new to fish keeping, been keeping Tropical, Marine and Koi for years but i am new to planted tanks and using C02.

So I'm picking up a 80L x 50W x 40H cms braceless tank at the weekend, I'm going to buy a Twinstar 600SA Light and controller today.

I want to keep BN Plec friendly easy to medium difficulty plants to begin with so I'm looking for a complete kit with inline diffuser but I'm not sure which one to go for and even more confusing is what gas bottle to use, where to get them from and refill, also what is the ongoing cost likely to be? I was thinking Soda stream gas because of size and possibly easier to get refilled but is the cost of running high?

Completely lost with this, any help is appreciated.

Thanks
Mark


----------



## dcurzon (8 Oct 2020)

pinchez said:


> I'm not new to fish keeping, been keeping Tropical, Marine and Koi for years but i am new to planted tanks and using C02.
> 
> So I'm picking up a 80L x 50W x 40H cms braceless tank at the weekend, I'm going to buy a Twinstar 600SA Light and controller today.
> 
> ...



A Sodastream bottle will cost you £22 from Amazon, plus you'll need an adaptor to get the regulator to fit.  So thats £32 at best so far.  You'll get around 420g of co2 in that bottle.  Refill/exchange bottle will be £12 from Argos.
The bottle is tall and slim, so you'll preferably want a way to keep it upright as its not very steady on its own, with the weight of a regulator on it.

In comparison, a 2kg fire extinguisher will also cost around £22 (shop around, there will be better deals about, Ebay) and contains about 2000g of co2.  Wont need an additional adaptor.  And will sit much more stable due to the larger base.  Height wise, there's perhaps only a couple of cm's difference (the Sodastream adaptor adds more height to the ss bottle).

I was using SS on a tank, but I recently picked up 2 x 2kg FE's (one was part used) with regulator and in tank diffuser for £40, so I've kept my SS bottle as a spare (plus it is easy to nip to Argos to get a replacement) and now have both tanks fitted with FE's.

I think FE's do give much better value for money, and fitting was actually much easier than with the SS.  You don't trigger the FE until after the reg is fitted, where as the SS doesn't have a trigger so you end up bolting the reg on as quickly as possible whilst co2 is escaping.

I hope that helps


EDITED TO ADD... on one of these threads, we did some calculations to work out an approximate co2 volume per bubble, and from there the amount of days running time you could expect dependant on how many bubbles per second your setup is using, if you can find that, it might help provide some working out for how often you'll need to replace the ss bottle vs FE bottle, although I'd look at it as 4 x ss bottles = 1 x 2kg FE, so £60 in SS bottles = £22 in FE bottles


----------



## pinchez (8 Oct 2020)

dcurzon said:


> A Sodastream bottle will cost you £22 from Amazon, plus you'll need an adaptor to get the regulator to fit.  So thats £32 at best so far.  You'll get around 420g of co2 in that bottle.  Refill/exchange bottle will be £12 from Argos.
> The bottle is tall and slim, so you'll preferably want a way to keep it upright as its not very steady on its own, with the weight of a regulator on it.
> 
> In comparison, a 2kg fire extinguisher will also cost around £22 (shop around, there will be better deals about, Ebay) and contains about 2000g of co2.  Wont need an additional adaptor.  And will sit much more stable due to the larger base.  Height wise, there's perhaps only a couple of cm's difference (the Sodastream adaptor adds more height to the ss bottle).
> ...



That's great info thanks, from what you say the FE's do seem a no brainer, where would I get these refilled and how much does it roughly cost? Also typically how long would a FE last?

Thanks
Mark


----------



## dcurzon (8 Oct 2020)

pinchez said:


> That's great info thanks, from what you say the FE's do seem a no brainer, where would I get these refilled and how much does it roughly cost? Also typically how long would a FE last?
> 
> Thanks
> Mark



A local fire safety type establishment "should" be able to refill or recommend somewhere that does... but if not, at that price its still a better deal even with throwing out the empty FE's.
At 2bps, 8 hours a day, 2kg should last 277 days.  Thats a ball park figure using a bubble weight of 0.125mg per bubble.  Your bps will differ, as will the co2 running duration.


----------



## superbutuz (17 Oct 2020)

Hello,

I've just got the nano co2 regulator, a soda stream adapter and a bottle. Looks to work well so far. Here is the pic, next to the 60l Dennerle cube which is 43.5cm tall. I chose this reg mainly because it's a small tank and i don't have a proper cabinet to hold everything. It's standing on the floor now. Not sure about running costs, but I guess I can switch to larger bottle if needed eventually.


----------



## FrankR (17 Oct 2020)

Apologies for hijacking the thread, but I'm also new to CO2.
Which setup would be best for a 30 l cube with medium/high light requirement plants?  An FE kit, Sodastream, 88g cartridges, something else?


----------



## Jayefc1 (17 Oct 2020)

Id always go with out of date FE because there a lot cheaper i just got 12 for the year


----------



## Kezzab (18 Oct 2020)

FrankR said:


> Apologies for hijacking the thread, but I'm also new to CO2.
> Which setup would be best for a 30 l cube with medium/high light requirement plants?  An FE kit, Sodastream, 88g cartridges, something else?


There's no 'best' as such. They all do the same thing. But the smaller the co2 bottle, the more expensive it is, relatively speaking.

I would choose FE if you have the space.

K


----------



## FrankR (18 Oct 2020)

Yeah, a FE makes sense. But I don't have enough space in my cabinet. Do you think that the equipment below would do the trick?

CO2 Bottle
Regulator
Solenoid
Diffuser


----------



## Kezzab (18 Oct 2020)

Check Machine Mart disposable co2 cylinders. 600gm, £15.  A lot better value If They fit in your cabinet.


----------



## FrankR (18 Oct 2020)

Kezzab said:


> Check Machine Mart disposable co2 cylinders. 600gm, £15.  A lot better value If They fit in your cabinet.


It has to be refillable. Makes more sense financially.


----------



## FrankR (19 Oct 2020)

Has anyone put together a CO2 system, using Sodastream or paintball refillable cylinders and parts (regulator+solenoid) bought from vendors that are not in the aquarium industry?

Feel free to PM me.

Cheers,
F


----------



## neofy705 (22 Nov 2020)

superbutuz said:


> Hello,
> 
> I've just got the nano co2 regulator, a soda stream adapter and a bottle. Looks to work well so far. Here is the pic, next to the 60l Dennerle cube which is 43.5cm tall. I chose this reg mainly because it's a small tank and i don't have a proper cabinet to hold everything. It's standing on the floor now. Not sure about running costs, but I guess I can switch to larger bottle if needed eventually.


This looks very tidy and practical. How's the nano regulator? Is the lack of a second gauge a problem?


----------



## superbutuz (22 Nov 2020)

neofy705 said:


> This looks very tidy and practical. How's the nano regulator? Is the lack of a second gauge a problem?


Not really, so far the CO2 flow has been quite smooth and steady. I switch off solenoid at night and back on about 2-3 hours before the light (need to buy the auto-timer). I use it conservatively, I should say, with the drop checker never turning yellow. From what I read it can be a problem when the bottle is nearly empty, but with the current usage it will take a few months and I hope that since it's a relatively small bottle it won't do any damage.


----------

