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Needle Valve Recommendation

Fishsticks

Member
Joined
4 Jan 2013
Messages
34
I'm setting up a FE system. I've sourced pretty much everything I need, with the exception of a needle valve. I've spent probably hours trawling through Ebay and am really struggling.

  1. There are plenty of aquarium-specific valves available for about the £10 mark, or less.
  2. There are a couple of rather hefty looking 'hydraulic' needle valves available second hand for about £20-ish, which have quite large bores.
  3. Then there are the Swagelok/Parker/Ideal valves that are so popular on US forums, but for which I'd be paying £20 minimum just to have it shipped to the UK.
I'm not looking to spend a lot of money building a Gucci set up with expensive components just because "they're better". However, I'm also reluctant to buy something cheap and useless only to have to immediately replace it with decent kit. Needless to say none of the valves come with any indication of how many turns there are between open and closed.

I'm all at sea, so can someone please point me in the right direction towards something that that's "good enough" but not unnecessarily pricey? Thanks!
 
For example:

Would this be suitable? It seems pretty big and doesn't look like the valves other people are using.
Large-bore generic needle valve on Ebay

And would this be too cheap and inaccurate?
Cheap aquarium-specific HK valve

This one looks very pretty and is rather more expensive than the Chinese valve, but other than the price and the pretty finish I don't have any reason to assume it's actually a better buy:
Sleek looking "hydraulic" valve

Other than the expensive US valves, there doesn't seem a great deal of choice. Lunapet doesn't seem to exist any more, so I don't know where people are getting their needle valves or which are considered worth buying.
 
I've managed to source the Fabco NV-55-18 from MK Air Controls Ltd., a UK supplier. About £45 delivered, with a 3 week lead time. It's less than I feared, but also quite a lot when I look at what the Americans can pick up on Ebay.

It's supposed to be a very good valve - considered one of the best 'normal' valves before you start to pay serious amounts of money for lab/industry grade kit. Having said that, I was rather hoping to find something cheaper - either to find a good second hand valve, or to find a good-enough cheap valve. I had been thinking more in the £20 ballpark, but it seems that everything is either much cheaper or much more expensive (ignoring what I suspect are the odd cheap Ebay valve with the price doubled for sale in UK aquarium shops).

I'm tempted just to have done with it and get the Fabco, unless anyone can recommend something more wallet-friendly...
 
Searching rswww.com and www.farnell.com, produces a whole range of needle valves that would be suitable, low flow, up to 10bar. However, not too sure which ones are suitable. Give their technical support a call ?
 
Thanks Ian - I can certainly give that a go.

To be honest, what I'm really hoping is that someone will say "I bought ____ valve and it's been okay", whereupon I'll immediately snap it up!
 
Thanks Ian - I can certainly give that a go.

To be honest, what I'm really hoping is that someone will say "I bought ____ valve and it's been okay", whereupon I'll immediately snap it up!
I bought three of the ones in the top link ( cheap aquarium specific HK valve)and they are great. Much more adjustable than the stock one fitted on my "co2 supermarket" reg. Another positive is that adding a second valve inline and fully opening the one attached to the reg removes the fluctuating bubble count issues due to the operating temp of solenoid expanding the internals of the attached valve.
Hope this helps.
 
Thanks Chris. At that price and with a recommendation I'll order one and see how it works out.

Thanks again!
 
ok, i'm jumping into this thread as a relative newbie ........i have the co2supermarket system and am finding the valve a nightmare to regulate with any degree of accuracy, it seems to be either all or nothing and i'm thinking that i'm losing a ton of gas when this happens every time i change the bottle. so am i right in thinking that in adding a second, more accurate needle valve after the first one , opening the first one on the regulator fully , and then tweaking the second, this will sort me out ??????
 
Nothing like a well made needle valve though.

These can be had for about 30-40$ US$ if you look and then pay the added shipping cost.
Anything with precision and vernier handle will be well worth it over time.
A good dual stage regulator will round things out.
Then you can adjust with ease and precision.

Given the issues with CO2/adjusting etc, and the fact it's the one thing that kills fish, (light/ferts will not), and main culprit for algae/stunted plants, I'd spend a bit more on it and not go cheap.
 
Hi Tom,
please, can you give us some links to the stuff you recommend?
Thanks in advance!
 
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