Please Help With Advice On Refilling Co2 Cannisters

Hello all,

I am in the Berkshire area and I am finding it so hard to find a company where I can rent or take my empty CO2 cannister to for refilling.

I have just finished installing my external reactor and it looks soooo good, then the next morning when the CO2 was suppose to kick in it was empty. So I can view a sweet setup without the CO2

I would really appreciate any advice that anyone has on this.

Thank you

Martin

What size bottle is it? Most places wont refill the large ones unless they are rented from them. All I did was whip out the yellow pages and ring through a few gas merchants. Eventually I found one that would rent me a big bottle for a flat fee of £30 then £15 every time I wanted it refilling. Can't complain at that to say the bottle lasts me over a year each time.

ChrisP said:

What size bottle is it? Most places wont refill the large ones unless they are rented from them. All I did was whip out the yellow pages and ring through a few gas merchants. Eventually I found one that would rent me a big bottle for a flat fee of £30 then £15 every time I wanted it refilling. Can't complain at that to say the bottle lasts me over a year each time.

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Wow, the bottle I have is 500g. I saw a 750g the other day that would also fit well in the cabinet - I suppose I could also go slightly larger. Do they do a 1000g?

That set up would suit me down to the ground. So Gas Merchants then eh, okay. With regards to the CO2 itself I take it I have it neat without any other mixtures?

Cheers

Martin

Nosnibor said:

ChrisP said:

What size bottle is it? Most places wont refill the large ones unless they are rented from them. All I did was whip out the yellow pages and ring through a few gas merchants. Eventually I found one that would rent me a big bottle for a flat fee of £30 then £15 every time I wanted it refilling. Can't complain at that to say the bottle lasts me over a year each time.

Click to expand...

Wow, the bottle I have is 500g. I saw a 750g the other day that would also fit well in the cabinet - I suppose I could also go slightly larger. Do they do a 1000g?

That set up would suit me down to the ground. So Gas Merchants then eh, okay. With regards to the CO2 itself I take it I have it neat without any other mixtures?

Cheers

Martin

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I think mine is about 2KG I used to have a bigger one but when I took it for refill they gave me a smaller bottle. But like I say lasts me over a year so I'm not fussed.

Yeah keep it as is, make sure you get food grade used for pop etc as others can contain mixtures of Argon for welding that are not suitable if I remember correctly.

Here's the one I'm using at the moment. Been going since October last year and still plenty left in it.

ChrisP said:

Yeah keep it as is, make sure you get food grade used for pop etc as others can contain mixtures of Argon for welding that are not suitable if I remember correctly.

Here's the one I'm using at the moment. Been going since October last year and still plenty left in it.

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Wow, what size tank is it feeding, do you have two.

I take it it's impossible for you to tell how many bpm your doing?

Martin
PS Thanks for showing the picture, give me a good idea.

That's for my Rio 180L and the canister only feeds that tank. I just had a quick look at my bubble counter and I think I'm doing about 30 bubbles per minute. If you want a cost affective solution that wont need its bottle changing more than once a year that's it. All i did was rent the bottle, buy some tubing, regulator and a bubble counter. Cost me about £60 to set up the tank.

They will only mix it with Argon if you ask them to. disposables are the same you can buy CO2, Argon or CO2/Argon mix

Specify you want CO2 and not Argon and it will be CO2 (unless they're dodgy people. lol)

As far as I know CO2 is CO2 wether its meant for pub bottles or not.

I use CO2 welding disposables and a lot of other people go to welder suppliers and get CO2 refills so this is why I make the assumption.

andy

Just remembered I made a guide a while ago so I may as well post it in case its of any use to you.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=135450

ChrisP said:

Just remembered I made a guide a while ago so I may as well post it in case its of any use to you.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=135450

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Great post Chris, wish I saw that a couple of months ago. I bought the Hydro Green NRG for £80, the bottle that came with it was sooooooo small. I think I had the bmp up far too high as it only lasted a couple fo days. I told the company I bought it from that it must have been faulty and they sent me another.

Luckily I sent a post in ask asked what anyone thought about that system, luckily again I got chatting with Supercorey1 who has been a great help. I ended up ordering a setup from Germany for the same price and lost £40 on the Hydro one selling it lest than a week later on ebay

Lesson learnt I can tell ya.

My set up looks so great but I just can't find a local gas supplier/merchant even if I go out further (like Reading, Slough, Swindon), it is soooo frustrating. I wish I thought about this when the kit arrived so I was prepared for when the bottle emptied.

If you know of any suppliers in the Berkshire area (even if I have to drive 30 miles away) please let me know.

Thank you

And thank you ChrisP for your persistence in helping me get this sorted, much appreciated

Martin

I know just how frustrating it can be when your bottle runs out it happened to me before. Honestly there will be somewhere near to you that will rent you a bottle of gas. All I did was go on yell.com type in gas and my area and then choose "Bottled Gas & Equipment" I rang through quite a few of them but after a bit of persistence I found one not too far away!

ChrisP said:

I know just how frustrating it can be when your bottle runs out it happened to me before. Honestly there will be somewhere near to you that will rent you a bottle of gas. All I did was go on yell.com type in gas and my area and then choose "Bottled Gas & Equipment" I rang through quite a few of them but after a bit of persistence I found one not too far away!

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Hiya,

Just thougth I'd let you know the latest.

I eventually got in touch with BOC in Reading. They have offered a sweet deal of, opening up an account (£10), hiring a bottle for the year (£44) and taking it to them to refill whenever empty (£8.65).

So over the year it works out to pennies more or less. Only thing is, they only have hip-high ones! I think that's the one you have Chris but I know my g/f would freak out if I brought that home and leaned it next to the aquarium

So I need to think about either dumping the bird or carry on looking around for smaller ones He did say that he has had the knee-high ones in that have the same amount of gas in but he has to wait until the ones in the shop have gone first and they have been there for some time now.

So being the evil minded swine I am, I'm going to convince the g/f that she will have to call them, put on the sweet and sexy voice and see if he will order me one in especially. So, get the two issues stopping me from getting CO2 to the plants and get them to fight it out

If the plan does work I will print out this thread and show it to both of them and show them how controllable they are and what an evil genius I am

Will let you know how I get on.

Martin