Need advice on using CO2 cylinder

[marcusy]

Got a 2L CO2 tank recently but without the regulator.thinking of getting the manual regulator any idea which type or brand to get, saw in the forum there are 2 type 1 is with 1 gauge and the other 1 is with 2 gauges,what the different between the 2? Do i need a bubble counter for it?

As what i know is that the co2 have to work with lighting.So how much CO2 to inject in the tank as i'm using 2 X36watt PL for my 3ft tank, is 72watt enough for my tank? if not wrong wrong dose will cause algae to grow.

Cheers

[bossteck]

Hi,

1 guage regulator shows you the pressure in the cylinder. 2 guage regulator shows you the pressure in the tank, and the pressure at which co2 is exiting from the cylinder.

A bubble counter lets you see how much co2 you're injecting into your tank. If you're using a glass diffuser, a bubble counter is redundant because you can tell by looking at the diffuser.

It would probably be a good idea to get at least a needle valve, which allows you finer control of co2 injection.

There are folks who inject co2 24/7, and there are those who time their injection with lights, the latter makes more sense if you ask me. If you want to hook up a timer to your cylinder, you will need to get a solenoid.

I will try to look for some resources and direct you to them, but you can also do a search on the following terms "needle valve" and "solenoid" here in AQ or on google, you will probably be able to find out more.

[bossteck]

As promised

http://www.plantedtank.net/articles/Pressurized-CO2/19/

The article gives a pretty good introduction to using pressurized co2 for planted tanks. Click on picture at the end of the article for names of the various components.