New To C02

[NeonWater]

Hi guys and girls, I’m not new to fish keeping in general but I am new to C02. As I’m soon to be getting a tank and I’m looking to have a good few plants growing, I thought I’d ask a few "noob" questions

How much are the kits?
What’s the basic principle on how they work?
How much is a refill C02 and how long would that last? Approx

Thank you!

James

 

[OldMan47]

It is my guess that the cost will vary quite a bit depending on where you are located. In my area in the US, a recharge of a CO2 tank is dirt cheap. I paid about $6 for the last refill on my 10 pound tank. A 10 pound CO2 tank on my 40 gallon aquarium will last the best part of a year. The hardware is another matter entirely. I bought a regulator with a built-in solenoid and micro-valve for about $90 and paid around the same for the rights to a CO2 tank. I say the rights to it because each time I take in my tank, they give me a freshly filled one in exchange so it is sort of like not really owning a tank although you must buy the rights before you can take home the first full one or pay a rental fee for the time that you keep it. The rental fees would have added up to more than the price of the tank in less than a year so I bought the tank.
CO2 is available in most towns at the shop where they sell welding gasses like acetylene. It is the same place you would go to get a refill if you used CO2 to make soda from syrups.

 

[MBOU]

Personally.. I use liquid CO2! Easylife Easycarbo, its about 1ml per 50l but will vary if you are really heavily planted. It also says to dose every day but i soon found that even in low doses, some fish dont like it, i found it far better to dose the tank 2-3 times a week max and it makes it go further and dose with plant food (easylife profito) twice a week instead of once. This is in a medium to heavy planted tank with cryptos, vallis, anubias, java fern, eleocharis and aponogeton species.

All my plants grow like absolute weeds, so much for anubias being slow growing, its putting up new shoots every week, i need to keep cutting the vallis back and the aponogeton too!

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I use "liquid carbon" too and have a fair amount of success although perhaps not as much as just described! I do believe however that there's a pretty firm consensus among our planted tank forum regulars (and many other planted tank forums and organizations) that pressurized CO2 still offers many and significant advantages over current liquid carbon chemicals. Pressurized just has none of the downsides that liquid carbon and DIY CO2 have. The only negatives would seem to be the high startup cost and the need for it to be watched over, which is not really different from the others.

I believe the startup cost of a system ranges from perhaps $150 (if building a DIY fire-extinguisher type rig from instructions found here on TFF) up to perhaps about $400 for full systems with extra gizmos. Money probably doesn't count as much as getting good info from the right people for putting together a good system. I've followed a number of threads where the planted tank members here on TFF helped someone along in the process of researching and putting together their first CO2 system. I hope to do it myself someday!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[NeonWater]

Brilliant info guys, thankyou very much! Ill look into the liquid form as thats totally new to me

Cheers

James

 

[OldMan47]

In the US, the liquid version is a product called Excel.