DIY co2 tubbing question.

[HammerJoe]

Hi,

I am looking at trying to use co2 in my soon to be 75gal tank.

I plan on using pop bottles like everyone else.
I am just confused about the tubbing.

What kind of tubbing should I be looking for at Home depot?

[jesstray]

I just use the standard tubing that you would use for an airpump. I know that others may disagree, but I approx 5' for around 2$ at Walmart. Don't put too much thought into it, just get regular cheap tubing.

[cich]

Yes, regular tubing will seep CO2 substantially faster, and if you are using a pressurised system, you'll want the proper stuff. However, I don't really see it mattering too much in a DIY situation. Silicone though is about the worst thing to use. Even vinyl is a lot better.

[Wasserpest]

Originally Posted by cich

... if you are using a pressurised system, you'll want the proper stuff. However, I don't really see it mattering too much in a DIY situation.

I don't follow the logic... if you are using pressurized, you can just crank it up to get to the level you need. For DIY, you are mostly stuck with what little your bottles produce, so loosing it through silicone tubing is worse than with pressurized, or? It's been a long day, so maybe I need to sleep over this

But anyway... Home Depot sells vinyl tubing which should be great for CO2, much better than the usual airline tubing made from Silicone. I don't think vinyl is much more expensive either. For longer runs, you could use some of the black dripline tubing, and for really long long runs, copper pipe might be an option.

[ganjero]

so the blue silicone tubbing is not good?

[Salamastre]

Maybe at higher pressure more CO2 will be able to seep through the plastic?

In DIY you have at most the pressure neccesary to overcome the difference between the atmosphere and maybe 1 2 feet of water depth, I am not sure what the pressure inside the tubing is for compressed C02.

[Safado]

Originally Posted by ganjero

so the blue silicone tubbing is not good?

I'm confused too. I have read elsewhere that this is the best???

[Wasserpest]

The pressure is independent from the origin of CO2. We are not talking about the pressure in the steel bottle, but what is in the tubing. That doesn't depend on DIY or HP, but on the way it is diffused into the water. With Hagen/Nutrafin ladders being one extreme of low pressure (CO2 just bubbling out). External inline reactors on the outlet of canister filters somewhere in the middle of the pressure field, and using glass diffusers or wooden fine pearling "stones" resulting in fairly high pressure.

So, same difference for DIY and HP.

Silicone tubing works fine, it's just the highest in CO2 losses. Blue or green or whatever color, doesn't matter. If you have the choice, take vinyl tubing instead. If not, don't despair, silicone tubing will get some CO2 into your tank just fine. Keep it as short as possible...

[cich]

Originally Posted by Wasserpest

I don't follow the logic... if you are using pressurized, you can just crank it up to get to the level you need. For DIY, you are mostly stuck with what little your bottles produce, so loosing it through silicone tubing is worse than with pressurized, or? It's been a long day, so maybe I need to sleep over this

But anyway... Home Depot sells vinyl tubing which should be great for CO2, much better than the usual airline tubing made from Silicone. I don't think vinyl is much more expensive either. For longer runs, you could use some of the black dripline tubing, and for really long long runs, copper pipe might be an option.

My point was that you do have to crank it up, and a bit of yeast and sugar costs less than a fill, so I condsider it more important because of the money. Yesterday was a long day for me too, and I was ignoring the obvious fact that even though it's really cheap, it's nice to have the flow without a 2nd reactor.

[cich]

Originally Posted by ganjero

so the blue silicone tubbing is not good?

ganjero, both blue and green silicone tubing is very permiable (leaky).
Safado, I'd say you heard a myth. It's excellent for just air-pumps or whatever, but not CO2.

[g8wayg8r]

Plastic Tubing Data Here

Unless you have long high pressure runs (and you probably should use copper then), the cheapest vinyl tubing you can buy is about as good as it gets unless you want to go with the yellow Tygon Fuel Line tubing at your local hobby.

I've never used silicone tubing but it does seem to be flexible and as mentioned above it's probably not a big deal with low pressure DIY. Plus, it should work well submerged. You would think that with all of the negativity we could use a coil of it to dose our tanks.