Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Tanks and Equipment => Topic started by: Emily Dodge on April 25, 2013, 05:16:46 PM
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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 :-)
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Is the bottle disposable or refillable if its the latter then they should fit the co2 fe,most regulators are a din 177 thread which are comparable with most co2 cylinders in the uk. Fitment wise your regs should screw straight on, I always use a bit of ptfe tape on the threads which you can get from your local plumb centre as this makes it gas tight so no leaks, hope this helps
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The bottle is refillable. Thanks for the help :)
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Just a thought...
the CO2 in a fire ext. is probably not food grade CO2, it may contain some toxic particles. I can't say for sure but someone else may know.
Personally i would hate to damage my plants/fish but like i said, i can't say for definite either way.
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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
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Hi all,
Food grade CO2???? Are you kidding me??? CO2 is what it is – erm, CO2! This is a gas, used for many purposes including putting down certain types of fires (by inhibiting supply of O2 which promotes burning), creating Soda water and the food for aquatic plants. It is always the SAME STUFF – CO2.
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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?
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Apologies Natalia,
I was (maybe not too clearly) throwing open a question that fire ext. CO2 may contain gases/elements other than just CO2, that may not be beneficial to our aquariums.
That is what forums are for, sharing thoughts, knowledge and experiences. Skull shared his experience of using fire ext. and now everyone on this forum (who was ignorant like me) knows that you can safely use them.
If you already knew the answer, then that is great, but i'm sure there are things you too are unsure about and links and threads you will find useful, here's one for starters;
www.hownottobesarcasticwhenpostingthreads.co.uk
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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,
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True.... O2 is O2 etc. However; what I think people were getting at was, for example, is medical Oxygen 100% O2 with absolutely 0ppb of impurities while welder's Oxygen is 98% O2 with 2% of 'other gases' that weren't completely evacuated from the 'empty' canister that's already full of Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide, Argon..etc etc., or is every canister, regardless of it's final use, treated exactly the same?
p.s. Welcome to the forum - good to have new people around :wave:
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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.
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According to their website, BOC, at least, supplies what they describe as "Food-grade CO2". What the difference between this and any other type of CO2 is, only BOC could tell because I lost interest after that.
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Just been listening to some Rolling Stones - did you know that jumping jack flash is a gas gas gas?
:fishy1:
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See....it's catching, isn't it? ;)
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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