[mcubed45]

Silicone is fine. I have 100+ ft of silicone tubing running to 3 different tanks in my apartment. Setup's been running 3+ years with no issues. CO2 tubing is marketing hype and a great way for sellers to make money.

 

[mcubed45]

There is a good chance that you're losing about 20+% of the total CO2 in your tank due to your tubing (probably more like 40%). It works fine but is wasteful. The CO2 is cheap. Time spent refilling is valuable to most.

There are 2 threads on here that show the math.

Nope.

My 20# tank lasts 6-7 months. That's supplying a 20g, 30g, and 75g, plus 4 kegs in a kegerator. The co2 loss is extremely small and it would take many many years before the cost of co2 lost would come close to the money wasted on co2 tubing and the ridiculous price premium compared to silicone.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=78126

 

[mcubed45]

You getting a lot of time from a large CO2 tank on 3 small aquariums doesn't really prove anything. Without more information I'd actually say you should be getting 1.5-2x that unless your kegerator is serving a public bar. Hoppy's experiment is interesting but he never commented if he tried the test in air which would greatly increase CO2 diffusion rates. I won't say I'm convinced that silicone will lose CO2 but there is still enough controversy that I wouldn't recommend silicone to anyone.

Also, the "CO2 proof" tubing I linked is $0.10 per foot. It's no more expensive than silicone tubing so for anyone buying tubing why would you choose silicone?

Ah didn't see your link. That's a great option then. I hadn't really researched other options other than silicone, vinyl, and "aquarium co2 tubing" at the time. My main point is that the over-priced "aquarium co2 tubing" vendors try to push is an absolute scam and waste of money.

Here's a more thorough analysis of why silicone is fine for our purposes:
http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/4843-co2-tubing

The losses are nowhere near the 20-40% you're claiming.

And my kegerator does see a fair amount of usage. A bunch of co2 is used when purging or force carbing.