Afraid of Pressurized CO2... Ease my anxiety, Please!

[Lucy155]

I have been in this wonderful aquarium hobby for 40 years! During this crazy 2020 year, I moved, downsized and now have one 75 gallon planted tank with Rainbows and Angels. I have managed a low tech tank using Anubis, swords and java plants, but wanted to up my game, expand my plant choices, and get a bit of challenge back into my hobby.

I recently invested in all the CO2 equipment, a 10 pound pressurized unit with a Milwaukee regulator. I have had the equipment for two weeks and am finding myself apprehensive about the dangers of pressurized CO2. Will it explode? Why would it? How should I secure it? Am I over-reacting and having an unnecessary anxiety attack about going forward with the project? This display tank is in my Livingroom. The cylinder will be on the side of buffet that is holding the tank. I plan to put it in the tote with the Cascade 1200 cartridge filter inside a rolling bin cart I built using an appliance dolly, wine crate and black tote. The cylinder fits behind the filter inside the black tote. Is that secure enough, or do I need to ANCHOR it to the wall? I have read that if it gets knocked over it can begin to spin and destroy things in the room. Will putting into the bin be enough security? I am willing to drill holes into the buffet if necessary.

Thank you all! This is the first time I am afraid to do something in the aquarium hobby!

LUCY

 

[Flushable Pets]

Although I don't have any experience with high tech aquariums (mine have always been low tech or, as I call it, medium tech with DIY sugar wash CO2 setups), I have played around with enough pressurized gasses to believe that you might be overreacting. I've worked with everything from pressurized CO2 canisters for paintball and pellet guns to oxygen for patients when I worked at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital to good ole flammable C3H8. It's scary the first few times you try something new, but follow the manufacturers instructions and you'll be fine. You honestly have to really screw up to hurt yourself. Your biggest concern should be how many PPM you need for your aquarium and what you're going to do with all these plants when they explode growth from all this supplemental CO2.

BTW, would you be so kind as to take some frontal shots of your tank without the glare? It looks like it's going to be a pretty sweet tank.

Lastly, I see you're pretty new to TFF. Welcome from about 2.5 hours west of you.

 

[Lucy155]

Hi! Thank you for calming my fears. I have had the regulator on the cylinder for days. The tubing, drop check and check valve need to be added. Then I guess I'll be ready to SLOWLY open up the big value and adjust the little valve. I think I'll be studying some more You Tube videos before I turn those values. Guess I'm still a bit afraid. Don't want to gas my fish! Why couldn't I just be happy with the way things were!!!!! Always go to push the envelope. You think at my age I would be happy to see healthy fish and nice plants. Oh well, can't change at my age!

Happy New Year. Attached is a front picture of the tank in the new home set up, taken last month. Thank you for the compliment! 2.5 hours away! I made note of that!

 

[StevenF]

The system will not explode due to the pressure inside. The pressure right now is at its highest and if it hasn't exploded it never will. Your tank is fare fare stronger than it needs to be. The cylinder should be strapped to something solid so that it cannot be bummed and fall over. If it did fall over the regulator could be damaged creating a leak the could empty a tank in a hour or two.IF you can hear or feel a leak open a window to insure the gas gets outside.

I work with pressurizes gases at work (He, O2, NF3, CL2... A semiconductor factory).

Before you turn on the gas adjust the regulator to its minimum position (turn counter clockwise until it stops). Setthe need valve to its minimum (Turn clockwise until it stops). Then open the CO2 bottle valve. This should give you the minimum CO2 flow to the tank.

At this point you should have no or minimal flow to the tank. Gradually increase the pressure at the regulator and increase the flow with the needle valve checking for leaks and problems as you go.

Personally I found a CO2 diffuser in my tank gave me inconsistent flow or and it was way too easy to get too much CO2 into my 5 gallon tank. And I was refilling my 21oz paintball tank every 3 months. I have switch to thee inverted bottle methode and found I got more consistent CO2 levels and found it to be more efficient. I now only need to fill my co2 bottle once per year. Unlike the video I attached a graduated cylinder to the line of my tank and ran the CO2 hose to the cylinder. I use a timer to refill the cylinder 4 times a day. With careful adjustment of the needle valve the cylinder is only slightly over filledfilled before the timer turns off the CO2.

 

[Wills]

I run Co2 on my tank but have to admit mine looks quite a bit different to yours I used a Co2 Art dual stage regulator and a Co2 fire extinguisher. I was super nervous about setting it up but it was quite anticlimactic as it was dead easy. It was just a case of making sure the O ring was in the right place and tightening a nut with a spanner enough and then the regulator takes care of the rest. Some people buy their canisters from questionable looking places but I get mine from a certified extinguisher place so I'm recieving a fully certified product (all be it I am using it in an unorthorised way). With any type of canister you can turn the supply off and on by it a valve or in my case a pull lever I fix in place with cable ties.

Just remember though when adding Co2 its got to be balanced with lighting and nutrition like a triangle otherwise you will end up with algae issues...

Wills

 

[Stan510]

Upside down bottle in a small tank is not a good look...but in 75 gallon shouldn't be hard to camo behind a nice rock or tall plants. Then again,if the bottle is nice to look at-lol,might be a conversation piece.
My bugaboo is..a tank so large I would need a 10 gallon or more pressurized tank and I don't want to bother with taking an empty tank once a month to some welder shop and some dude who might get tired of seeing me "Everybody else wants gas for welding steel and HE wants it for plants?" I imagine how it would go.
One more thing,from what I've read 25-30ppm is a good number for plant growth (the warm Guppy stream on Youtube in Germany? is 20ppm naturally- just thought I Would add that tidbit) and ALWAYS have a timer to shut off the Co2 at night.

 

[Colin_T]

My turn and I hate CO2 in tanks so bare with me.

What sort of plants do you have or do you want in the tank?
Some plants like Anubias won't use extra CO2 because they are marsh/ garden plants and grow very slowly when kept underwater. If you are adding CO2, you want to keep fast growing true aquatic plants.

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LIGHT
What sort of light is on the tank and what is the kelvin (K) rating of the globe?
Insufficient light will mean the CO2 is being wasted and will end up in the atmosphere where it will eventually kill us all from CO2 poisoning. This is already happening so don't think it's a joke.

Unless you have really bright light with the correct wavelength (about equal parts of red and blue light, and throw in some green), then adding CO2 is not going to help the plants grow.

Look for globes with a 6500K rating.

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FERTILISER
What sort of aquarium plant fertiliser/s are you using?

Do you monitor the iron and other levels in the water that come from the fertiliser?

If you don't have sufficient nutrients in the water, or those nutrients are not in the correct balance, adding CO2 is not going to encourage the plants to grow faster. You usually get an algal bloom instead.

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KH BUFFER
Do you have a KH buffer in the tank, preferably an automated type that monitors and adjusts the KH for you?

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a very acidic gas and can quickly drop the pH of the tank water. If you don't have sufficient KH (carbonate hardness) in the water, the pH can drop rapidly (in hours) and kill everything in the tank.
You want a KH of at least 10dGH (180ppm).

Most rainbowfish do best in water with a pH above 7.0 and a GH above 200ppm.
Angelfish come from water with a pH below 7.0 and a GH below 100ppm.

If the pH crashes, there is a good chance you will kill all the rainbowfish in the tank.

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BE CAREFUL ADDING CO2
Tanks that get additional/ supplemental CO2 are usually set up for plants, not fish. The tank is built around growing aquatic plants and fish are normally added after everything is up and running. This means if the CO2 unit isn't set up properly and you fill the tank with CO2, there are no fish to kill.

Be very careful adding CO2 to an aquarium that has fish in it. There are always reports of people wiping out tanks when setting up a new CO2 unit, so monitor the water chemistry and watch the fish really closely for the first 24-48 hours and for at least a week after it has been set up.

If the fish start gasping at the surface or breathing heavily, turn off the CO2 and get a couple of airstones running in the tank.

If in doubt, reduce the CO2 or turn it off. These is plenty of CO2 in the average aquarium and it comes from bacteria, fish, shrimp and even plants when the tank is dark. There is also heaps of CO2 in the atmosphere and it gets into the water too.

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The shop you bought the unit from should have told you how to set it up and adjust everything so you don't kill all the fish. If they haven't, call them and ask them for a bit of help.

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GAS BOTTLES
As for CO2 bottles, they are very safe as long as there is no rust anywhere on them. CO2 bottles and other bottles designed to hold gasses, are checked regularly (usually every year) and have to meet various safety guidelines, because if they blow up, they can kill people. However, the bottles are built extremely well and actually have multiple layers of metal cylinders in them. So the chance of a bottle blowing up like they do on television, is virtually zero.

If you use a gun and shoot holes into the bottle, they generally won't blow up unless there is a flammable gas inside and you fire a couple more shots to create sparks. CO2 is not a flammable gas and will not explode when shot.

If a gas bottle is knocked over and lands on the tap, it might bend the tap but it should not knock the tap off and allow gas to blast out and cause the bottle to spin around. The taps they put on gas bottles are also built to specific regulations in relation to safety and you need to do some serious damage to a tap before it will allow the gas to come flowing out rapidly.

The most common problem with gas bottles is the seal on the top where the tap goes. If the tap is not put on properly or tight enough, then gas can leak out of the bottle and you have to refill the bottle a week or so later. You can test the bottle for leaks by making up some water and dish washing liquid. Use a sponge and wipe this soapy water around the seal at the top of the bottle and see if it blows any bubbles. If it does, the bottle is leaking and the tap probably needs tightening up a bit more.

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WHEN USING CO2 IN TANKS
When using CO2 in aquariums, turn off the CO2 an hour before the tank lights go out. This allows the plants to use most of the CO2 in the water before they go to bed.

Most people turn the CO2 on when the lights come on. Some turn the CO2 on an hour before lights come on. I prefer to have the CO2 come on with the lights.

Plants take an hour or so to pump up nutrients into their leaves in the morning when the sun comes up. During this time they don't take up much CO2 and there will be plenty in the tank from the fish and bacteria producing it over night.

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SURFACE TURBULENCE
Minimise the surface turbulence when you have CO2 going into the tank because aeration and vigorous surface turbulence will drive CO2 out of the water. At night when the tank lights are on, you can have some surface turbulence to increase the oxygen levels for the fish.

You should monitor the pH day and night for a few weeks while using CO2 to make sure there are no major pH fluctuations between the day and night cycles.

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WATER MOVEMENT
Tanks with supplemental CO2 should have good water movement. This is normally done with water pumps. The pumps move the CO2 rich water around the tank so all the plants can get it. If you don't have enough water movement, there can be huge amounts of CO2 by the diffuser or whatever you use to put it in the tank, and no CO2 at the other end of the tank.

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Silicon airline/ tubing is meant to be better than plastic airline tubing when it comes to CO2. The acid pH of CO2 can sometimes cause problems to the plastic. It's not normally an issue but I figured you should be told of this just in case the airline tubing starts to go brittle, change colour or leak.

High levels of CO2 is not found in natural waterways (creeks, rivers and pond), and adding it to an aquarium is a human idea to try and enhance plant growth. There are plenty of aquariums containing plants that don't use CO2. If you use CO2, be careful and use it because you want to. But remember what is filling the air we breath (CO2). Don't add more to the atmosphere. Make sure the plants have everything they need to use the additional CO2.

If everything is done correctly, and you don't poison the fish with CO2, the tank should look nice.

 

[Stan510]

Everything Colin said is what I've gleaned from reading a million posts on Co2.
Funny thing is? In low tech some things are the opposite. Highly aerated tanks with lots of fish,grow plants better than still water tanks with a few fish. In fact..I cant prove this but its just my observation that those powerhead vortexes? Not only aerate the water for good health for fish and good bacteria in the tank and filter,I think it also feeds the plants a higher Co2 level with those millions of tiny bubbles. I see tiny bubbles accumulate under plant leaves..just like they do in Co2 plant videos.
I've talked to some plant guys who also say "No Co2 needed" just quality and bright lights and iron to get those that have color to turn red. They also like a dirted soils to start. They seem to keep very few fish just as the Co2 guys. So,a variety of ways in life..as usual.

 

[StevenF]

Not only aerate the water for good health for fish and good bacteria in the tank and filter,I think it also feeds the plants a higher Co2 level with those millions of tiny bubbles. I see tiny bubbles accumulate under plant leaves..just like they do in Co2 plant videos.

What most people don't realize is that CO2 will bond with water so it so aeration will add CO2 to the tank. but typically it takes a lot more aeration than many people relze to get enough CO2 into the tank. Also CO2 levels will not exceed the atmospheric concentration. So if you add enough CO2 to get over the atmospheric concentration increase aeration will actually drop the CO2 down to atmospheric levels.

If you have a well aerated tank it is possible to get air bubbles trapped under a leaf and yes the plant can extract CO2 from any bubbles trapped under the leaf. But in most tanks with the light off in the early morning you will not see any bubbles under the leaves. But after the lights come on you will gradually see bubbles accumulate under the plant leaves grow and then bubble up to the surface. When the lights turn off the bubbles vanish. Those bubbles are not air or CO2 they are Oxygen, a waste gas produced when plants convert CO2 and water to sugar. By the time the lights turn off the water is saturated with Oxygen. It is called pearling and you can get plants to do it in low tech tank. but you need to be absolute sure you have all nutrients other than CO2 in the water.

The surprising thing about CO2 is that is extremely difficult to detect in water. Most chemical test kits for water CO2 cannot tell the difference between organics, carbonates, and CO2. So chemical CO2 test are not recommended for impure water. You will only find pure water in a lab.

Most CO2 users use drop checkers to insure there CO2 tank levels are are about 20ppm. Most don't realize that a drop checker doesn't work in the air which has 400ppm of CO2. A drop checker can only tell you when the CO2 level in the tank is in excess of 400ppm. Meaning when someone tells you they 20ppm of CO2 in the tank, They actually have 420 or more in the tank.

Other aquarist use a PH probe. They add enough CO2 to drop the PH by 1 point but if you look at PH CO2 charts for pure water a 1 point PH drop is about 400ppm. Other aquarist use PH, KH, CO2 chart to calculate the CO2 in their tank but those charts only work if there is noting in the water other than CO2 to cause the ph to drop. Unfortunately aquarium have a lot of stuff in the water other than CO2 and KH that can affect PH.

That is why I earlyer recommend the inverted bottle methode. it keeps the water at 400 ppm. with no risk of going over. With no waist and no messing with drop checkers, ph probes or anything else. But if you want you can measure the volume change in the bottle to estimate your CO2 usage which for my tank works out to about 6mg per hour or 6ppm for my entire tank. Meaning I am adding co2 just as fast as it is bing consumed by plants or lost to the air. All without the annoying buzz of an air pump.

 

[Stan510]

My tank IS noisy!..no buzz,just lots of gurgling from the filter pump return sucking in air with large bubbles made and the powerhead making more frothy bubbles. But,my tank is in its own room,door closed at night.
One other difference in growing plants with fish and low tech? The pro's who aquascape do huge water changes..at least per week and some advocate daily water changes..all the time adding fertilizers. That's just too fanatical for me. Unless you have it all set up to be done automatically..then I SALUTE YOU.
Do large changes often in low tech will just starve plants and then if you dose OFTEN to make the difference? Thats hard on the fish.

 

[Wills]

Really interesting thread here I knew when setting up my tank Co2 was 'frowned' on by a lot here but my focus is on the aquascaping side which is what I'm enjoying.

There are a bunch of other ways of having success with planted tanks - theres the Walstad method and the true low tech way - look up MD fishtanks on You Tube. His planted tanks are annoyingly successful and he uses the most basic set ups, I think his success comes from having very soft tap water but hes very knowledgable on lighting and ferts. I dont always agree with his stocking choices or some of the shops he aligns with (they sell monsters) but worth checking out.