I'm looking for people's experience with getting CO2 in Canada, I've previously had a bottle from Air Liquide but it was a pain to deal with them.

I'm waffling back and forth between the paintball bottle method and the traditional bottles. The paintball bottles would be much easier to fill while the traditional bottles last longer. I'll be using the system with a controller and a solenoid so my use should be a bit lower than usual for a 90 or 135 gallon tank.

Opinions? BTW, I'm in Calgary. Also, I'm not aware of any beverage places that can be of service.

A couple of things to try (I'm north of toronto BTW). If you don't care about owning your own tank, call the local hydroponics store they often have 20# bottles that you pay a deposit on (~$75) and then just swap it when it's empty (~$20). Second, you can look up Fire Extinguisher places, they often will sell and/or fill 5# and 10# tanks. Finally look under industrial gas and/or welding supplies in the yellow pages, with so much work in the oil sands the welding supply places are probably all over.

HTH

Thanks, the Hydroponics and Fire places are a good suggestion. About the oil sands, they're all the way up in Ft. McMurray so there's not much impact here.

Ah.. the way it played on the news here you just walk into any calgary backyard and start digging up oil

Well, to be fair, there's an impact here, no doubt about that. I guess I was referring to industrial activity...not that much of it going on here.

I looked at getting it from my welding gas supplier. But it was way too expensive for a small bottle. (ie 20#). So I found a local fire extinguisher repair and sales business who sold me a tank (at a fair price) and refills it at a low cost. A 20# tank lasts me about a year on my 45gal tank.

PS, the problem with the swapping thanks method (with a gas supplier) is you can end up with really crappy looking tanks. That's why I preferred to purchase a new or reconditioned tank.

If your 20 lb tank is only lasting a year on a 45 gallon then you have a leak.

I'm just going to hide it under my tank and not worry about looks

I had the same problem you did trying to find a tank (I live in Calgary as well). I ended up ordering a 10lb tank online (Kegworks.com) for about $120 shipped. That was still quite cheaper than anyone around here could offer.

Oxypro was the cheapest to fill the tank too at around $30 I think. It's been a couple months now so not postive. I called almost every gas supplier I could find in the yellow pages and this was the cheapest I could find.

If you end up finding anything cheaper let me know!!!

I'm still seriously looking at the paintball option, Badlands Painball Supplies Canada - Paintball CO2 Systems has the tanks and can fill them during normal business hours, rumour has it that Crappy Tire can fill them at any time so one thought it to buy two tanks and never have any downtime. It looks like that'd cost about $130 and I'm not sure of the refill cost but it wouldn't be too different.

The other option is to go the conventional tank route (I'd rather not buy the tank), the refill thing bugs me because I'm never in the industrial area with my car during business hours so I'd be taking time off work to go fill CO2...which isn't quite square with me(even though I may be square!). The option thats in my area is Quick Grow. They do refills of conventional bottles. This wouldn't be particularily fair to the company that supplied the tank but...

I still have to get a hold of the fire supply places to check out their options as well as make a final decision on how much space I have for the bottle.

Thanks for the ideas thus far!

could one of you guys direct me to a link that deals with the paintball method and what equipment I'd need exactly (other than the paintball CO2 tank)

Thanks guys

Mmm, to be honest I've not thought too hard about it. My intent was to get the tank/s, I've got a regulator and then figure out the adapter that I'd need to use to put the two together.

In my experience these logistics and details are far easier to figure out than it appears online. Between what the different groups like paintball, brewing, aquariums, fire and general industrial groups call things you'd think it's rocket science(at times it is online), when all you really need is a 3/8 to 1/4 adapter or something.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

red sea has a setup but it's ~220CDN at BA. you might be able to find it cheaper though. I also have not heard any reviews on the co2 setups so YMMV and all that.

Red Sea CO2 Pro System (Paintball) at Big Al's Online

hmm...kinda pricey. But I guess you can't really get away from that, can you? Unless someone else knows something else that's a bit cheaper.

Thanks for your input guys.

That Red Sea system doesn't even have a solenoid. I may be building some Nano CO2 systems with solenoids. Cost delivered to Canada would be about $185 USD if I can get enough orders together.