CO2 And Fire Extinguishers

Hi,

How easy/difficult is it to use a CO2 fire extinguisher to provide CO2 for my aquarium? I currently have a JBL 500gm setup but in a 300 litre aquarium they don't last long and refills are expensive. If I buy a 2Kg extinguisher how do I connect it?

Em :-)

The bottle is refillable. Thanks for the help 

No it's not food grade,but it is of a grade that is suitable for aquarium plants,running my for a while now and had no problems,infact my plants have grown tenfold,plus I don't know if its is anything to do with my co2 but my fish seem so much healthier  and more energetic

As I am in the catering industry, I can tell you that there is a difference between food grade and non-food grade.  It's all about the levels of impurities.  Similarly, God forbid you should ever have a lung problem, I would bet that you would not let the doctors hook you up to welder's oxygen as opposed to medical grade oxygen.  However, perhaps you wouldn't object......after all, O2 is what it is, erm, O2.......isn't it?

As I am in the catering industry, I can tell you that there is a difference between food grade and non-food grade.  It's all about the levels of impurities.  Similarly, God forbid you should ever have a lung problem, I would bet that you would not let the doctors hook you up to welder's oxygen as opposed to medical grade oxygen.  However, perhaps you wouldn't object......after all, O2 is what it is, erm, O2.......isn't it?

I am engineer for BOC gas.

I thought I would inform you about gas distribution.

If I take CO2 as an example, we pump the same CO2 supply into all canisters be it for the food, medical or aquatic industry. As said before, CO2 is CO2.

Like wise, given your example of O2. Be it for hospital use or welding, all canisters are filled from the same source.

This is standard across the industry. A gas is a gas. There is no distinction, 

Back in the 1970's at university, we used nitrogen gas in the lab to flood apparatus to keep oxygen and water vapour out of sensitive reactions. The well off inorganic section (where my husband was studying) had 'white spot' nitrogen, in the organic section where I was, we had standard nitrogen. The difference - white spot cylinders had a white spot painted on the front to signify that there was no oxygen or water in the cylinder even in trace amounts. Ours did not have the white spot so we had to run the nitrogen through a drying tree; stage 1 removed the oxygen and the rest of the stages removed the extra water vapour added from stage 1.

Since there were two different grades of nitrogen supplied to university chemistry labs for the same purpose, no-one would be surprised if the carbon dioxide supplied for different purposes was of different grades.

Just been listening to some Rolling Stones - did you know that jumping jack flash is a gas gas gas?

 

Hello Emily,

I also use a JBL 500g CO2 cylinder. Just a few questions:

1  What CO2 concentration are you maintaining?
2  Do you switch CO2 off at night?
3  Is the water surface very turbulent?
4  How is the CO2 being injected into the water? Is it a porous ceramic diffuser or is it simply a spiral tube? If it is a ceramic diffuser, at what depth is it positioned in the water?

In asking these questions, I am simply trying to see if the CO2 being injected into the aquarium water is being used to maximum effect. It's a bit like asking a motorist if they are getting the most miles per gallon.

Once we have answers to these questions, we can go from there.

JPC