95g co2 finished in 4 days

[Christopher Cook]

Hi, I've recently set up a 25l tank. I hooked it up with a 95g CO2 canister that is fed into a JBL inline diffuser. For the first two days I was releasing about 15 bubbles a minute. Then on the third day I got a drop indicator the only way I could get it from blue to green was to do about 60 bubbles a minute. On the fourth day the CO2 ran out!? I was expecting it to last much longer... And at 15 pounds a canister... I'm feeling super sad. Is this normal to finish that quickly?
I previously did a leak test on the diffuser and the regulator using soap but they looked fine. I could visually see the bubbles coming through into the tank water, and the drop checker changed so I assumed that there weren't any leaks and all was good. Could the seloniod be leaking?

 

[doylecolmdoyle]

When i first tried co2 I used these little disposable bottles, I brought a packet of 3 and they didnt last the week... I wouldn't waste my money with them! Get a bottle you can refill.

 

[Christopher Cook]

Thanks Doyle, Where can I get one of those?

 

[doylecolmdoyle]

Thanks Doyle, Where can I get one of those?

I am not in the UK so not sure, any decent aquarium store should be able to help, I am sure some locals will chime in soon!

 

[MattW]

Hi there,

I'm assuming you're currently using one of JBLs disposable CO2 kits such as this one, do correct me if i'm wrong. What canisters you can use depends on your current regulator, if it is a JBL disposable then you'll find it difficult to get hold of canisters any bigger than 500g and even then these come at a hefty price like the 95g cartridges and aren't refillable.

Your best bet is to upgrade to a full regulator setup using the British standard thread - these can be purchased a lot of places but the best suggestions would be CO2 supermarket or CO2Art - take note that these places also sell regulators for disposable systems, for a refillable and generally larger canister you're looking for the following threading: DIN 477 / BS 341 No. 8. The alternative is to go with a nano thread adaptor like this one instead of buying a whole new regulator & solenoid, so it's entirely up to you, if you're happy with your current setup then go the adaptor route but do make sure your current regulator has a 5/8" UNF thread - I assume as it's cartridge based it does.

As far as getting the actual CO2 bottle there's a few places - like doylecolmdoyle mentioned a lot of aquarium stores might be able to help you out however you'll likely find they charge a fortune for their bottles, there's a thread on UKAPS about refills in certain areas, if you can find it you'll likely find a distributor able to sell to you - I can suggest Adams gas, they are based in Kent but deliver to London and are able to do anywhere from 1kg up to 6.65kg of CO2.

 

[Siege]

Assuming your reg is the Jbl one for disposable bottles. I think you can get a Jbl adaptor so your regulator will fit a traditional bottle. One of these maybe? Others will be able to confirm.

https://www.swelluk.com/jbl-u-m-ada...MIyfmD8_Hn3AIVRLDtCh0cywsQEAQYAiABEgL0AfD_BwE

Yes try Adams gas or uk gas or fire extinguisher off ebay (out of date ones are reasonable). Of course check size of bottle will fit in your cabinet, I think my last buy was 5kg extinguisher for something like £27.

 

[Christopher Cook]

Wow thanks for the help guys. Well my device is actually from CO2 supermarket. It's the nano, and just to future proof I also purchased that adapter think that one day I might get a bigger tank.

This is my reg:
https://www.co2supermarket.co.uk/co2-regulators-nano-co2-regulators-gsc96.html
This is the adapter:
https://www.co2supermarket.co.uk/5-8-unf-din477-thread-adapter-p501.html

For those of us that are in the southeast, water is really hard, could this explain why the drop checker needed so much to CO2 to change colour?

 

[Barbara Turner]

I use a standard co2 regulator and use out of date co2 fire extinguishers, it's currently costing £5 for 2kg that lasts be about a month. (bigger tank though)

 

[MattW]

For those of us that are in the southeast, water is really hard, could this explain why the drop checker needed so much to CO2 to change colour?

A drop checker works on PH changes that occur when injecting CO2 due to the creation of acid, hence the PH drops when you inject CO2 into water and we can measure this in order to calculate how much CO2 we roughly have dissolved in the tank. Ceg4048 summed it up very well in the following statement from this thread:

This illusion is generated by the fact that hard water is generally high in pH and the carbonates/bicarbonates in the water act as a buffer to neutralize the small amounts of carbonic acid produced by CO2 dissolving in water. When identical amounts of CO2 are dissolved in hard water the pH drop is not as much as when dissolved in soft water so it appears as if the CO2 is less effective in hard water. While there is some minor differences in the solubility of CO2 between hard and soft, those differences have no effect for our purposes.

The drop checker however is separated from tank water and hence doesn't suffer from hardness, you shouldn't really see a difference in how much CO2 is required to change PH in the checker which creates the colour change. The checker relies on balancing the amount of CO2 between the checker & the tank water below the air gap, but as mentioned in the above quote the difference in CO2's ability to dissolve in hard vs soft water is minor and doesn't affect the level we normally operate at.

Remember though that a drop checker isn't actually measuring the exact current conditions of your tank, often it can be a few hours behind so there is a delay before it's actual colour is formed hence this may be causing an illusion that an abnormal amount of CO2 is required to cause change.

Does this help?

 

[MattW]

Also to add on my 19L tank i'm running over a bubble a second (which is what you mentioned you had to up to) which is normal, 95g cartridges really aren't a lot of CO2 for our purposes which is why kits sold like those are often money pits - I'm running a 2kg fire extinguisher on this tank and expect it to last about 8 months or longer before I need to think about replacing it.

 

[alto]

Hi, I've recently set up a 25l tank. I hooked it up with a 95g CO2 canister that is fed into a JBL inline diffuser. For the first two days I was releasing about 15 bubbles a minute. Then on the third day I got a drop indicator the only way I could get it from blue to green was to do about 60 bubbles a minute. On the fourth day the CO2 ran out!? I was expecting it to last much longer... And at 15 pounds a canister... I'm feeling super sad. Is this normal to finish that quickly?
I previously did a leak test on the diffuser and the regulator using soap but they looked fine. I could visually see the bubbles coming through into the tank water, and the drop checker changed so I assumed that there weren't any leaks and all was good. Could the seloniod be leaking?

At first I misread this as 60 bubbles per second
& and agreed canister would soon run out

But @1-2 bubbles per second, a 95g disposable last me 3-4 weeks depending (I often run lower bps 24/7 as loads of ambient light in room)

I suspect you have a leak somewhere - note a slow leak (but significant for this amount of CO2 canister) is not that easy to detect even when using a proprietary agent such as Snoop - which is much better than water/soap at detecting slow leaks