Fire Extinguisher Co2 killing fish?

[DannyH]

Hi all,

A quick question/ thought.

How clean/ pure is the Co2 coming from my fire extinguisher setup?

I ask as despite having prefect tested water quality all round, very low biomass, and text book fish acclimatisation, I seem to always lose a few fish in the weeks after adding them to my tank?! Its really frustrating.

I’ll have 6 harlequin rasbora, seemingly very happy, and then 2 weeks later, 4. Nothing changed nothing different, no signs of duress on the other fish. They just seem to vanish?!

I’m not running RO on this tank, but I only buy hardy fish from local shop, that are kept in the same tap water as mine.

Could it possibly be the Co2?I don’t run a high bubble count, or for many hours.(more a mid tech arrangement), drop check never goes as far as pale green. There’s never any gulping at the surface, so no signs of asphyxiation.

Which leads me to the thought of what’s in fire extinguisher , non food grade Co2? Could it be traces of other gases causing the transitional issues that fish seem to have to my tank??

Anyone had a similar thoughts/ issues?

Thanks for any help that is much appreciated!

Danny

 

[hypnogogia]

I wouldn’t have thought the fire extinguisher co2 would be a problem. I’ve used it in the past and not had any problems.

 

[John q]

How clean/ pure is the Co2 coming from my fire extinguisher setup?

I think the co2 purity from co2 bottles is about 99.5%, unlikely this is the smoking gun unless you hooked up a Argon/co2 mix by mistake.

There are 101 reasons why aquarium fish die, rule out co2 impurity and you're left with 100 other ways that could be suspect.

 

[PARAGUAY]

Have you approached the shop to tell them, .l would set a quarantine tank up,no CO2 of course, for any further buys and if possible try some other shops ,comparing can tell you a lot, CO2 has levels fatal to fish,is it possible you had an unsafe level , like John says many reasons why fish die,

 

[ScareCrow]

Have you tried lowering your CO² injection rate when introducing new fish? Despite being on the same source water and assuming they're coming from non-injected tanks it might reduce some of the stress associated with fluctuating / differing parameters brought about by CO².
Copying in @Wookii as I believe he reduces CO² injection when introducing new fish.

 

[dino21]

From what we had read all C02 appears to come from the same supply method, there are no different grades, if it was "dirty" likely it would soon gum up your regulator and diffuser.
You need to say the size of your tank, how many BPM you are dosing and for how many hours a day ?
Do you measure your PH say first thing in the morning and just before the Co2 ends ?