[NanoDave]

So on my trip to one of the LFS by me I was browsing the clearance section and saw a Tetra CO2 System Master Kit. I had seen it there a few months back for $50 but was turned away by how old it looked. Well today I pulled the trigger as it was only $7.50 and thought what the hay! Here's a pic of the throwback system haha:

So I'm not a total newbie to co2 systems as I do have a few smaller ones but am no where near the skill level I wish I was at. That being said I screwed on the regulator and heard compressed air coming out and quickly tightened the regulator onto the bottle so I know the tank still has air in it. I turned the top dial to open the chamber and nothing happened. I dunked it under water, no leaks, nothing. The top dial actually screwed all the way off and still nothing. Am I missing something? Am I supposed to turn a valve or maybe this small hex piece towards the bottom needs to be opened?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for messing with stuff but something about a regulator and canister made in 1991 and compressed air has me wanting advice before hand. Any advice and or experience with similar systems and such will be of great help! Thanks all.

 

[jeffkrol]

I'd start by seeing if the plastic dial turned and not the valve..

 

[Jack Gilvey]

That's awesome. I think I remember that one!

 

[NanoDave]

I'd start by seeing if the plastic dial turned and not the valve..

How might I go about seeing if the valve is turning?

 

[pwu_1]

the screw(small hex piece) on the bottle looks like it holds the top to the bottle. I wouldn't try to mess with that yet.
Look at the under side of the plastic cap, make sure its not stripped and it turns the square piece when you turn the knob. If stripped, maybe take a pair or pliers and see if you can get the square piece to turn?

 

[jeffkrol]

the screw(small hex piece) on the bottle looks like it holds the top to the bottle. I wouldn't try to mess with that yet.
Look at the under side of the plastic cap, make sure its not stripped and it turns the square piece when you turn the knob. If stripped, maybe take a pair or pliers and see if you can get the square piece to turn?

My guess is the valve is frozen to itself.. Thus the 50- 7 price change.. And yes the cap is probably stripped...

 

[alaskajeff]

So on my trip to one of the LFS by me I was browsing the clearance section and saw a Tetra CO2 System Master Kit. I had seen it there a few months back for $50 but was turned away by how old it looked. Well today I pulled the trigger as it was only $7.50 and thought what the hay! Here's a pic of the throwback system haha:

So I'm not a total newbie to co2 systems as I do have a few smaller ones but am no where near the skill level I wish I was at. That being said I screwed on the regulator and heard compressed air coming out and quickly tightened the regulator onto the bottle so I know the tank still has air in it. I turned the top dial to open the chamber and nothing happened. I dunked it under water, no leaks, nothing. The top dial actually screwed all the way off and still nothing. Am I missing something? Am I supposed to turn a valve or maybe this small hex piece towards the bottom needs to be opened?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for messing with stuff but something about a regulator and canister made in 1991 and compressed air has me wanting advice before hand. Any advice and or experience with similar systems and such will be of great help! Thanks all.

I would be afraid to hook that thing up to any kind of pressure. Modern Co2 systems are not that hard to deal with once you get started they are much easier to use than you realize. The problem for most people is that there is such a wealth of information available it becomes confusing. Buy a modern regulator for starters. If you want some help putting a system together read some of the articles on here or send me a PM I would be more than happy to help.

 

[jeffkrol]

Historical.. and how nothing dies on the internet..
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/co2-bells.html

by obrien-at-bio.bu.edu (Todd O'Brien)
Date: 26 Jan 1994

First of all, I want to completely thank Thomas Narten (narten-at-cs.albany.edu)
for posting the original "DIY-CO2" articles. The following is only in
response
to questions about my use of the Tetra CO2 System "diffusion bells"...
All credit goes to Thomas Narten (and the people he in turn thanked) for the
initiation of my adventure in DIY-CO2 ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

What is the "Tetra CO2 Bell" ?
Are you familiar with the $400 ($225 TFP price) Tetra CO2 Master Kit
that comes with a CO2 tank and regulator and four diffusing chambers (or as
I called them, bells... oops!). On page 8 of the latest (blue) That Fish
Place catalog, under CO2 systems, they sell "CO2 System Add on diffusing
Chambers, 2/pk. $8.99". That's what I bought. I got them at the local pet
store for $9.99 (but think it was a mistake and they should have been $14.99).
It is just two clear plastic bells (er, diffusing chambers) that attach to an
airline (from your CO2 source) and then suction cup to the side of your glass.

The "Tetra intended use" is to fill them twice a day (fill 2 bells for up to
30 gallons, fill 4 bells for up to 55 gallons) with CO2 from their over-priced
regulator and puny 7 ounce tank! The gas trapped under the water, is pressed
on by the water, and diffuses into the water.

 

[AlanLe]

Historical.. and how nothing dies on the internet..
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/co2-bells.html

Where did they get these posts? Some are dated back to 1990????

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[prighello]

Pretty cool find.

 

[NanoDave]

Where did they get these posts? Some are dated back to 1990????

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I know right! Archie; the first internet archive wasn't created till 1990 and the point and click navigation till a year after that. I'd be damned if people were talking about fish stuff on the internet back then!

ANYWAYS, I tried turning the valve with a crescent wrench and it seems to just "click" and almost spin in place never releasing air out of the out take. Might just be a total loss on the regulator but might still be able to use a few other things in the box. I see some 1990 root tabs and some plant fertilizer stuff. Maybe I'll set up a laterite base with inert substrate cap and 1990 root tabs and fertilizers and see how it does. Talk about throwback and going real old school!

I wonder if the saying translates to planted tanks...

"They don't make things like they used to" will be.... "Plants don't grow like they used to "

 

[jeffkrol]

Where did they get these posts? Some are dated back to 1990????

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

NSA............. :red_mouth

Anyways those seem to b from "newsgroups" (usenet) which existed b-4 "the internet" per se..

The backbone cabal was an informal organization of large-site administrators of the worldwide distributed newsgroup-based discussion system Usenet. It existed from about 1983 at least into the 2000s.
The cabal was created in an effort to facilitate reliable propagation of new Usenet posts: While in the 1970s and 1980s many news servers only operated during night time to save on the cost of long distance communication, servers of the backbone cabal were available 24 hours a day. The administrators of these servers gained sufficient influence in the otherwise anarchic Usenet community to be able to push through controversial changes, for instance the Great Renaming of Usenet newsgroups during the 1980s.

bit more:

Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It was developed from the general purpose UUCP dial-up network architecture. Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980.[1] Users read and post messages (called articles or posts, and collectively termed news) to one or more categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many respects, and is the precursr to Internet forums that are widely used today. Usenet can be superficially regarded as a hybrid between email and web forums. Discussions are threaded, as with web forums and BBSes, though posts are stored on the server sequentially.

One notable difference between a BBS or web forum and Usenet is the absence of a central server and dedicated administrator. Usenet is distributed among a large, constantly changing conglomeration of servers that store and forward messages to one another in so-called news feeds. Individual users may read messages from and post messages to a local server operated by a commercial usenet provider, their Internet service provider, university, employer, or their own server.

related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

The website textfiles.com serves as an archive that documents the history of the BBS. The historical BBS list on textfiles.com contains over 105,000 BBSes that have existed over a span of 20 years in North America alone. The owner of textfiles.com, Jason Scott, also produced BBS: The Documentary, a DVD film that chronicles the history of the BBS and features interviews with well-known people (mostly from the United States) from the heyday BBS era.

I know right! Archie; the first internet archive wasn't created till 1990 and the point and click navigation till a year after that. I'd be damned if people were talking about fish stuff on the internet back then!

1994 for this one,,,,,,

The Krib: Aquaria and Tropical Fish

This site contains information about tropical fish aquariums, including archived usenet postings and e-mail discussions, along with new articles and photographs designed specifically for the web. The specialty here is freshwater aquatic plants and dwarf cichlids, but you may find information on a variety of subjects.
We are the oldest living aquarium web site, having been around since January 1994.