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Help please, Algae and lack of growth

I think its a good idea IF i turn the gas off and disconnect the gauge and have a play and get to know how it works abit more...

Im scared everything I adjust will end In the regulator ending up in next doors living room!!
 
Yes its safe but you shouldn't really need to, the valve will be fully open at half a turn. It means you can close them quickly in an emergency. I'm just trying to eliminate all possibilities. Sometimes if you open a full cylinder too quickly it can damage the gauge but it usually just makes the needle move out of its correct position not go lower when you start using the gas the service gauge looks to be working fine though. And yes sometimes you do have to add a little more to the service pressure than what you need but its the contents gauge thats being a silly bugger not the service guage
 
On mine an anti-clockwise turn will unscrew (I've labeled mine so I don't forget) up and out from the regulator body, the diaphragm spring is very beefy and has quite a bit of tension in it. I traced my regulator problem to the actual regulator adapter not being screwed in properly (not a part that I had to assemble since I added my sodastream adapter to this stem) which undid itself in my hand sending a cloud of gas into the kitchen very suddenly. After fixing this I then discovered that the regulator tap operating pressure was adjustable via the regulator tap (I assumed this was not adjustable, but it is, only downwards from the gauge pressure).

Yeah familiarisation with equipment helps eliminate sneaky surprises!
 
So just turn the cylinder off, had a play and put back together and the bottle pressure still sinks down to around 25psi when I open the needle valve.

I can turn the regulator pressure up but it still sinks back to around 25psi..

Its a real pain as it mucks up my bubble count every day when the power comes back on.. I just want to make sure its the gauge before paying £50 for a new one..

Thanks for the help so far!
 
You've got a leak somewhere. Your bottle pressure is not what you're seeing drop its the regulator pressure due to a leak somewhere. My leak turned out to be from the regulator stem, what I was seeing was any increase in bubble adjustment beyond 1 or 2 per second would initially see an increase in rate that dropped quickly back to 1 or 2 a second a few moments later. I had play in my regulator stem and it undid itself in my hand when I went to check my adapter connection was tight enough (the adapter connection i fitted was fine, but unfortunately in an effort to tighten the bloody regulator stem properly after just about gassing everyone with half the soda stream bottle contents, I damaged my operating pressure gauge so it only reads half what it should, but I still get working pressure).

After all this I belts and braced it and used PTFE Gas Tape on all the hose connection threads (i also discovered not to put gas tape on the soda stream adapter bottle threads, it'll leak). I can now adjust anywhere between 0 and uncountable bubbles per second. My gauge is stuffed but I know it's working to the pressure that my inline diffuser needs because I'm getting a 1 degree ph drop in less than hour of gas on (i can go faster but the fish don't like it), I couldn't do this before I fixed the leak as it would take all day to get the drop checker green.
 
Okay thanks alot!

Did you discover the leak through spraying the regulator with soapy water?? I will try this in the morning and try to find a leak.
 
No I discovered it when it came apart in my hands. I had moved all my kit from one side of the room to the other and placed it in a unit below the tank, it was being tempremental before the move but only intermittently (I put it down to my inexperience), the stem must have been incorrectly tightened beforehand creating an intermittent gas tight seal, the stem must have worked itself loose further during the move (the stem to the regulator always had play in it and I had assumed it had been correctly assembled before it came to me since it was the only thing I didn't have to assemble) and when I lifted the unit to check the tightness of the bottle connection there was a massive continuous release of gas from the stem over my hand and I had to scramble to disconnect the soda stream bottle from the regulator. I disassembled everything and gas taped all the threads and when i went to re-tighten the stem to the regulator (which required a lot of effort) i didnt realise the force i was using bent the operating gauge housing into the dial ruining it. I had done the soap bubble check at the beginning and all appeared fine, with hindsight it was obviously only just gas tight and one turn of the stem was enough to release the bottle contents.

The problems I was having with the inline were all down to a leak in the system, that's what all the advice on this forum and others pointed to, this made me check and I discovered the cause of my problem. Luckily it de-gassed whilst I was there and only from a soda stream bottle and not a pub cylinder!
 
Right im tearing my hair ( the little I have left) out now.

Took the time this morning to test my system properly. I got my cylinder and tested every joint was tight - which it was. Next I used a spray bottle and some soapy water to go around everything and again no bubbles...

Next I tested along the line to the next joint (bubble counter) before finally coming to my inline diffuser.



and heres the inline



Finally I wondered If the gas could be leaking where my external filter pipe joins onto the spray bar connection? ( this join sits above the water line?)

Im running out of ideas really :-/
 
I checked my inline was working by connecting it to an airbrush compressor and pushed air through it (operating pressure is adjustable on my eBay compressor and I was getting mist at 15psi so I didn't have a blocked atomiser). If you can adjust the bubble rate precisely then maybe your inline is only able to pass the co2 at 20psi in its current configuration (blocked), if you can't adjust the bubble rate precisely then it still seems to point to a leak, that's the behaviour I saw with mine. Yeah I was pulling my hair out too.
 
Thanks for the continued help. Fingers crossed Im working towards a solution..

So tonight I decided to disconnect the inline diffuser and run it directly into the tank. Bypass the bubble counter and see what we had.

As expected the diffuser is not blocked. However 10mins after turning my needle valve as tight as I could to turn it off and doing the same with the pressure valve I can still see bubbles coming through as shown in my video...



I still cant get an operating pressure over 25psi either.. Is this looking more and more like a dodgy regulator??
 
One of the things that I also did once I gas taped everything together was to run the system to get bubbles in the counter, then I turned the gas full off by turning the regulator tap (I'm on a sodastream and have no bottle tap to adjust so full bottle pressure goes straight into the regulator) watching the bubble count decrease confirmed I was turning the regulator to the close position. Once the regulator tap was fully closed and no gas was passing through the counter I then opened my needle valve to the full position and noted that the gas remained off. I then very carefully opened the tap on the regulator and noted gas starting to flow bubble by bubble, I continued to open the flow until I got an uncountable bubble stream then stopped. I then turned the needle valve towards the closed position and noted the decrease in rate, but with slightly finer control than before.

My bent/unbent gauge only reads 20psi, something bent inside prevents the needle from going higher but I still get working pressure.

If you can get an adjustable cloud of mist out the inline by sticking it in the tank and and the gauge only reads 25 I would be inclined to think maybe the gauge is faulty. If you forgo the inline and put the co2 gas line in the tank and you still can't get an adjustable bubble rate then I would assume the regulator is broken or at the least a fault anywhere between the regulator and the needle valve and before the hose.

When I had a pressure leak the chain of events that I saw were - Needle Valve Open, Solenoid Open, Gas Flowed, Rapid Bubbles, Decreasing Bubble Rate, Settled at 1BPS, Needle Valve Adjustment No Effect on Bubble Rate Adjusting Toward Fully Open, Closed Needle Valve No Gas Flow, Opened Needle Valve Full, Rapid Bubbles Initially Decreasing to 1BPS........ad nauseum

I don't know what a blocked regulator/needle valve symptoms would be sorry, I can only described what I experienced. But systematic checking of every connection led me to discover my problem, and I gas taped all hose threads to ensure no leaks.
 
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