# CO2 equipment choices Regulators



## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

I'm starting to convert a 12 gallon tank from being a Reef tank to a planted Amazon tank. I'm presently looking at picking up the equipment I need gradually so it does not instantly empty my pocket book. I have experience with CO2 from the 1990's but know that technology must have advanced since then.

Can some individuals give me some suggestions on the best ways of regulating the CO2 flow today. What equipment is essential, and what is a nice option to have today. What is garbage out there in the market that I might be wise to know about.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

With no response perhaps I need to qualify my question here a little better. I have found regulators on the market ranging from $40.00 to $200 US. I have found needle valves ranging from $15.00 to about $60.00. I know that you normally pay more for quality. But do some of the lower or mid priced items on the market today work equally as well? I'm looking at running a 5 or 10 pound bottle on a 120 gallon gallon tank so please someone point me in the most economical direction.


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## wwh2694 (Aug 15, 2008)

Hello you got several options here. You can buy a fully build one or Diy. We have several members here that will build it for u for a fee or green leaf aquarium has a good regulator u can get. The best one to get now are the 2 stage regulators. This regulator will prevent end of tank dump. The more expensive ones are made of stainless steal. The SSS 2 stage regulator will last for a long time they are expensive but it's worth it. I went on both till I realize that I should have just went to diy.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

Okay what is the basics of the DIY regulator. My thoughts is you need basicly any regulator that will being your pressure down to just above atmospheric pressure. Then a needle valve to adjust the flow rate and finally a bubble counter to allow your o see how fast your feeding the CO2. At least this is what my old system was like. With two gauges one to monitor the pressure before and another after the regulator. 

If I recall my biggest expense was the needle valve which years ago was around $60.00. The regulator I used was typical for a beer tapper which I got new with the gauges for about $50.00. 

Please give me some added info on the DIY's you mentioned o some links.


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

People seem to prefer dual stage regulators as opposed to dual guage. They are better at preventing end of tank dump.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

My initial thoughts were to go with something like this.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GBXLAQ8...TF8&colid=1O3KQPQ5Z9TVC&coliid=I1P6RNFU8NNZCO

Has anyone used it? Would I need an additional needle valve with it? What are your experiences.


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

A solenoid is pretty useful.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

BruceF said:


> A solenoid is pretty useful.


Yes I'm aware of that. Down the road I'm hoping to add a pH controller however I'm taking this step by step not to blow out my budget all at once with no money left for fish and plants.


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

With the Milwaukee unit you can get the solenoid and it won’t be that much more. It is not the best but if you are careful it works fine.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

If you DIY a CO2 rig for a planted tank you will pay a little less but you will spend a lot of time looking for fittings (unless you know exactly what to get) and you are not really saving a lot of money compared to a ready-to-go CO2 pressure setup. Prices are like this:
- Dual gauge regulator - $45 from any beer brewing place
- Needle valve - $20
- 5 lbs. CO2 bottle, full - about $80-100.

The total of $150 or so sounds good but these are the considerations:

--> Have to connect the needle valve to the dual gauge regulator;
* Since the pressure is only 10-15 psi (that is the psi which the needle valve works correctly) you can put a piece of flexible hose to connect needle valve and regulator. Use zip ties and super glue. It works very well.
* To use a brass fitting you have to find it, hopefully at a local home improvement store. Usually time consuming and often you can't find the right fitting easily.

--> Cheaper needle valves are hard to adjust;
* You have to spend about 1 hour tuning and waiting to see if your bubble rate stays constant. The rate can also change overnight (the first night after setting it up).

--> Power goes off = Water movement stops but CO2 is still running;
* Can suffocate fish 
* Can be ok IF you use a powerhead inside the tank to break up the bubbles. That is a very efficient and cheap way to diffuse the CO2. When the power is off the CO2 bubbles just go to the surface without being broken by the impeller - no CO2 saturation when power is out. Cool thing about using a powerhead - the quiet noise that every bubble makes when it hits the impeller is also an audio bubble counter.

--> Adding a solenoid is not cheap;
* Price for a solenoid itself is about $60. Then add cost of new fitting + time spent to find it.
* We have all very much agreed that CO2 is not needed at night because the plants do not need it when it is dark AND because the pH that we all run in our tanks is way below the pH=8.0-8.5 at which the biofilter is said to run at its best. A higher pH during the night is supposed to help the biofilter. How true is that is another story. No solenoid means you cannot turn off the CO2 at night (unless you use a powerhead to disperse the CO2 but that means that the powerhead maybe off during the night using a timer but the CO2 will just run and be wasted every night).

Bottom line is - if you can then get a ready to go rig (Dual gauge regulator, needle valve, solenoid). Starting price of $120 is good, anything above that is usually good looking and reliable but not necessarily needed.

One vast improvement to a CO2 rig is to add a metering valve - a needle valve that has a precise adjustment. That is about $60-80 to add but the control is very fine, not like the $20 valves.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

So your suggesting something like this could be a better purchase right from the beginning?

<http://www.amazon.com/DICI-Aquarium-Solenoid-Regulator-Silver/dp/B00GBW3GES/ref=sr_1_10?s=pet-supplies&ie=UTF8&qid=1391409720&sr=1-10&keywords=Aquarium+Co2+regulator>


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

Better than the other one yes. But these cheap ones have problems with higher pressures and you have to be careful of the end of tank surges.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

On the needle valve or flow valve yes I remember having issues with that years ago. I got the finniest needle valve I could fiind on the market it was like 1/4 turn between off and way to much CO2. I was using a beer keg regulator and there again the pressure was very sensitive. as well. I was hoping those made for Aquarium CO2 would automatically be better. 

Can anyone find a link to a regulator combination they can recommend. Note my BD is coming up and I'd like to have in on my wish list.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

This one has been around about 10 years. It is very small size and I think it is an excellent buy.
http://www.amazon.com/Milwaukee-Ins...er/dp/B001DTNWF2/ref=pd_sim_sbs_petsupplies_1

But since this is for a birthday also try to see if this slides:
http://carszz.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Bugatti-Veyron-Best-Touring-Car.jpg


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

Interesting find. Niko. The Milwaukee Combination is $10.00 less than the one I found and you claim it is better. 

Sorry that car for my birthday is not my style. I want my Z-71 back with the 454 engine and 4 wheel drive with a full 8 foot bed. It is pity they make that combination any more.


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

i build co2 units for people and have handled my fair share of co2 equipment. All I can say is don't go cheap with co2. 100 dollar regulators may seem too expensive now but when that one fails or if you accidentally break it the frustration and time you spend trying to figure out whats going on isn't worth it. If you can only spare 100 dollars on your system then just buy the aquatek or milwaukee if you want the easy way out. Problems with those budget regulators is that 1. you might get EOTD, 2. needle valve adjustment will fluctuate with temps/inaccurate. 3. solenoid will probably fail either in a few months, when you get it, or in a very long time. basically YMMV. cheapest way is to still build your own rig. you can build a kick ass dual stage rig with high quality components for <100 dollars all from ebay or people who sell a lot of co2 parts. Only problem with that is you have to read a crap ton of stuff and spend some time looking on ebay. There are other super cheap alternatives for a regulator <100 that work better than the aquatek or milwaukee but they require a bit of work...


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

I have a Milwaukee set up. I find the main thing is you have to prevent surges by following the directions about turning off then slowly turning up the pressure and it helps a lot if you keep track of the co2 before it runs out. For instance I know the 10lb tank lasts about 6 months so I will swap it out, hopefully before it runs out.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

BruceF said:


> I have a Milwaukee set up. I find the main thing is you have to prevent surges by following the directions about turning off then slowly turning up the pressure and it helps a lot if you keep track of the co2 before it runs out. For instance I know the 10lb tank lasts about 6 months so I will swap it out, hopefully before it runs out.


I thought that was the main reason for the twin gauges. One tells you the pressure in the tank and the other the pressure being delivered to the needle valve.

The 6 month mark sound like roughly what I was getting from my old set up which was very crude. Basicly a beer tapper regulator plus an expensive needle valve. that was 1/16 of a turn between off and where I wanted it.


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## Tugg (Jul 28, 2013)

There is dual guage and dual stage. Gauges just read pressure. Stages control it. Honestly the second *gauge* is almost useless. The ourput pressue is all that really matters. The tank pressure will almost always read 800 (or whatever you home temp puts it at). The only time it will go down is if the tank gets cold (winter) or you are just about out of CO2. In which case you want to replace it ASAP.

On a dual stage regulator, you will still have two gauges, but the purpose is to prevent the tank from dumping when it gets low. When a CO2 tank runs out of liquid, the presure inside will quickly start to drop from the 800psi to regular atmophere pressure. Some regulators won't function properly at such a low PSI and can suddenly dump all that pressure out. Dual stage regulators have two regulators run in series. The first sets a working pressure for the second stage. If the tank tries to dump, the working pressure on the second stage is wrong and it closes up, preventing a costly disaster in your tank.


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

Yes Niko I had a low cost set up years ago and ran into issues. About a week or two after I set it up I had to go out of town unexpectedly. When I returned my liquorish gourami's looked better than ever but everything else in the tank was dead. First thing I checked was pH and it dropped down to under 6.0. This was roughly 18 years ago.

I was hoping technology improved since then but things are sounding about the same. The only difference is there are some packages on the market now that were not when I set mine up. With the price range though for a set up without tank but a solenoid I'm seeing a price range of $90 to $300. Until I get a pH controller I thinking of hooking the solenoid to work with the lights. 

But my issue now with the price range what is good and what is garbage out there and which are just plain over priced.


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## foster (Mar 7, 2013)

I'm using an Aquatek reg. I'm fairly impressed with it so far. Once adjusted it holds the set pressure fairly well. Pretty decent reg for $79


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## alanle (May 8, 2013)

Problem Is these systems tend to break down after a year or you word need to adjust the bubble rate every now and then

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk


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