CO2 Dump!
October 20th, 2008
After the catfish convention auction, I came home and started acclimating the new bristlenose plecos that I got. I putting them in a 20L quarantine tank, and when I turned around I noticed that none of the sunfish or killies that usually swarm the front of the tank were there. Eventually, I spotted a few of the sunnies dug into the Ranalisma rostrata, and a few others swimming awkwardly at the water surface.
Immediately, I knew what had happened; the CO2 tank ran out, and dumped a ton of CO2 into the aquarium all at once. Right away, I pulled out my Python hose, and did a 50% water change. I also borrowed an air pump from another tank, and threw an airstone into the 40G. At that point, all I could do is wait and hope that I wasn’t too late.
I’m happy to report that despite some really dire looking fish, nearly all of the fish survived as of today. I only have one sunfish confirmed dead, and all killies are accounted for. I was lucky.
So, now the question is what can I do to prevent this from happening again? Well, two things come to mind:
1. I could add a pH controller to control the solenoid on my CO2 tank. If the tank suddenly started dumping, the pH controller would shut off the flow of CO2 once the pH dropped below a certain level. Unfortunately, this is not the cheapest solution.
2. I could attach a low-pressure regulator to the regulator I currently have. This would detect the low pressure that causes a CO2 dump, and vent that gas to the room, instead of the aquarium. The downside to this is that I already have a 3-way manifold on my regulator, which is pretty heavy. I’m not confident that the low-pressure regulator could support that weight.
So, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. At this point, I should have at least 6 months to decide before this could happen again. It’s not even a guarantee that it will happen again. That said, I don’t want to take any chances. Does anyone else have any alternative suggestions for what I could do to prevent this from happening in the future?
October 20th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
I’ve never put CO2 onto my tanks, but I do controls on a larger scale for work. Why would running out of CO2 dump CO2 into your aquarium and how would a regulator help?
October 20th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
You could try 3 Ideal 52-1-12 Needle Valves
I believe I saw somewhere that they work well against end of tank dumps. They are not cheap though.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I had this happen to me once, luckily I had no fish in the aquarium at the time
October 21st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
m@, from thekrib, this is what causes the dump:
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/dumping.html
October 21st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I just came across another potential solution for my particular Milwaukee regulator:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/equipment/49769-i-fear-eotd-what-do-you.html
Basically, I need to set my low-pressure gauge higher than I have it to minimize the end-of-tank-dump problem. Currently, it’s set right around 20psi. I’m going to try increasing it to 30-35psi, and see how that goes. If that fails, I’ll investigate The Ideal 52-1-12 needle valves, but I’d rather not drop that much cash on those right now.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Hmmm, that doesn’t make sense as flow through a given orifice should increase with a rise in the pressure drop. If your tank is running out that should lower your pressure drop. Maybe these regulators are designed to require a minimum pressure differential across them. That’s unusual though.
Drop me a message if you need needle valves. I can check to see if I can get them any cheaper.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I haven’t a clue with this stuff, m@. The two URLs I referenced above have some folks talking more in depth. I’ll let you know about the needle valves if I have another dump. Thanks!
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:12 am
Nice article. Thanks. 🙂 Eugene
May 9th, 2009 at 12:05 am
what did you do?
May 9th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Thick, so far I just upped the pressure as recommended in that plantedtank thread in comment #5. So far, so good.
October 10th, 2014 at 8:14 pm
Would having a dual stage regulator prevent dumping?
October 11th, 2014 at 10:50 am
Justin, yes, the dual stage regular does prevent dumping.