Spinal
Fish Crazy
Ok, so after lots of time spent looking for a reducer to make this look good; I gave up trying to finish this as a £20 pressurised CO2 setup and ended with a £15 setup. This assumed you already have a diffuser/reactor of some sort.
Materials:
- 1 x Paintball CO2 cylinder (20Ounce version cost £10 from Deltaforce secondhand)
- 1 x Brass tap connector from B&Q (£2.50 from B&Q)
- 1 x Brass hose connector from B&Q (£2.50 from B&Q)(not totally necessary)
- 1m x 12.5mm(internal) clear hose from B&Q (78p)(much less needed, but this was the shortest I could get)
- 1 x standard airline connector (equal straight) (50p)
- some PTFE tape (49p from B&Q)
Equipment:
- 1 Hot Glue gun (or silicone adesive)
- a pair of hands
Proceeding:
1- Take the PTFE tape. Making sure you don't twist it into a thread, wrap it around the thread of your CO2 cylinder
2- Take the brass Tap Connector and screw it tightly onto your CO2 cylinder; you should notice the top of the cylinder pressing against the internal rubber washer of the tap connector
3- Take the 12.5mm pipe, put the airline connector down one side and seal it off with hot glue (or silicone). The idea is to make an airtight seal so that you reduce the pipe-size down to a standard airline. a good idea is too put a drop of hot glue on the connector, just behind the middle then let it cool. Repeat, but instead of letting it cool, place it inside the pipe. When that is set, you can just seal off the pipe and leave the connector sticking out.
4- Cut the pipe short. 4/5 inches is plenty
5- Insert a piece of loose toilet paper into the short pipe (this will help any liquid CO2 evaporate). An old filter sponge piece would be nicer; but it would add to the cost. I cheated and used a piece of washing up spomge from the kitchen...
6- Connect this short pipe to the Brass Pipe Connetor.
7- Connect the two brass connector together, if you want safety, there is a little screw you can tighen on the B&Q model that will hold it perfectly firm.
8- Connect your airline/diffuser to the small pipe connector.
9- SLOWLY open the CO2 cylinder, wait a few minutes then start checking the CO2 levels in the water... adjust as necessary.
Notes:
- the CO2 cylinder MUST be the type with a shut-off valve. The cheaper ones with a depression pin wont work. If you are unsure, look at this image. The cylinder should have that black knob. If you can get a dirt cheap cylinder without it, the knobs cost roughly 5/6 pounds each
- the setup would be much better with a pipe reducer (12.5mm - 4mm)
- CO2 refills can be gotten from Deltaforce (or your paintball site). If you are friends with one of the marshalls they will be free, otherwise they usually are happy to refill the canisters for you for 50p
- Though most people would turn this off at night, I found that turning on my 2 airstones at night solves the CO2/oxygen problem at night. I have set them on a standard timer.
- I thought of an improvement, but its a little hard to implement. Instead of glueing a airline connector to the inside of the pipe, I've tried shoving a small airstone down the larger tube then hot glueing it in. That said, I'm having some issues sliding the airstone in, it crumbles at first then doesn't go in. If I found an airstone small enough, this would be ideal as it would definetly stop any liquid CO2 entering the air-line...
I tried making this as clear as possible, if you have any more question, I'll be happy to answer them. Also, I do plan on uploading some more images, but I'm not too happy with the home-made reducer, so will do my best to improve it...
Thanks to ImageShack for Image Hosting
Materials:
- 1 x Paintball CO2 cylinder (20Ounce version cost £10 from Deltaforce secondhand)
- 1 x Brass tap connector from B&Q (£2.50 from B&Q)
- 1 x Brass hose connector from B&Q (£2.50 from B&Q)(not totally necessary)
- 1m x 12.5mm(internal) clear hose from B&Q (78p)(much less needed, but this was the shortest I could get)
- 1 x standard airline connector (equal straight) (50p)
- some PTFE tape (49p from B&Q)
Equipment:
- 1 Hot Glue gun (or silicone adesive)
- a pair of hands
Proceeding:
1- Take the PTFE tape. Making sure you don't twist it into a thread, wrap it around the thread of your CO2 cylinder
2- Take the brass Tap Connector and screw it tightly onto your CO2 cylinder; you should notice the top of the cylinder pressing against the internal rubber washer of the tap connector
3- Take the 12.5mm pipe, put the airline connector down one side and seal it off with hot glue (or silicone). The idea is to make an airtight seal so that you reduce the pipe-size down to a standard airline. a good idea is too put a drop of hot glue on the connector, just behind the middle then let it cool. Repeat, but instead of letting it cool, place it inside the pipe. When that is set, you can just seal off the pipe and leave the connector sticking out.
4- Cut the pipe short. 4/5 inches is plenty
5- Insert a piece of loose toilet paper into the short pipe (this will help any liquid CO2 evaporate). An old filter sponge piece would be nicer; but it would add to the cost. I cheated and used a piece of washing up spomge from the kitchen...
6- Connect this short pipe to the Brass Pipe Connetor.
7- Connect the two brass connector together, if you want safety, there is a little screw you can tighen on the B&Q model that will hold it perfectly firm.
8- Connect your airline/diffuser to the small pipe connector.
9- SLOWLY open the CO2 cylinder, wait a few minutes then start checking the CO2 levels in the water... adjust as necessary.
Notes:
- the CO2 cylinder MUST be the type with a shut-off valve. The cheaper ones with a depression pin wont work. If you are unsure, look at this image. The cylinder should have that black knob. If you can get a dirt cheap cylinder without it, the knobs cost roughly 5/6 pounds each
- the setup would be much better with a pipe reducer (12.5mm - 4mm)
- CO2 refills can be gotten from Deltaforce (or your paintball site). If you are friends with one of the marshalls they will be free, otherwise they usually are happy to refill the canisters for you for 50p
- Though most people would turn this off at night, I found that turning on my 2 airstones at night solves the CO2/oxygen problem at night. I have set them on a standard timer.
- I thought of an improvement, but its a little hard to implement. Instead of glueing a airline connector to the inside of the pipe, I've tried shoving a small airstone down the larger tube then hot glueing it in. That said, I'm having some issues sliding the airstone in, it crumbles at first then doesn't go in. If I found an airstone small enough, this would be ideal as it would definetly stop any liquid CO2 entering the air-line...
I tried making this as clear as possible, if you have any more question, I'll be happy to answer them. Also, I do plan on uploading some more images, but I'm not too happy with the home-made reducer, so will do my best to improve it...
Thanks to ImageShack for Image Hosting
/www.markermart.co.uk/) which does only paintball goods, and will probably have them cheaper....
still dive with it too) or rent a large CO2 cylinder; get a "refill station" (a simple adapter with 2 valves). It allows you to refill paintball cylinders... that said, its an expensive solution to a simple problem 
