What is the best economical and reliable CO2?

[PAL]

Searching for days has left me with not much. I have a 55 gallon with 2.9 wpg so I need a good co2 source... My options are a DIY, Flourish Excel or Pressurized CO2. Here are the pros and cons to all three:
DIY:
Pro- Cheap to start
Nothing special needed to begin
~$2 per change every 2 weeks
Cons- CO2 Fluctuations
Hassle, every two weeks a change
Smelly
Can leak
Can back siphon

Flourish Excel:
Pros- Cheap to start
No dealing with smells or constant changes
No equipment needed
Cons- Expensive over time ($90 or so a year)
Not as good a pressurized co2

Pressurized CO2
Pros- It is godlike, minimal maintainance and once set up, perfect co2
Cons- Expensive primary investment
Supposively an annoying clicking noise, please tell me if this is true :)

I plan on having this tank for 3 years. Please tell me what you would go with in my situation being a student with minimal money. BTW, there is HC, Dwarf Hairgrass, Rotala Indica, Mermaid Wee, Ludwigia Cuba, Staurogyne sp "Porto Velho" and Trident Java Fern. Please help me out:newbie:

[vito357si]

Just go pressurized don't waste your time and $ with diy or excel. With Diy you need a few bottles to get a good co2 numbers on that tank also it will run night and day no way to turn it off. Excel will get $$ to dose that size tank. Just get a Milwaukee regulator around $100 shipped and a co2 bottle 10# alum about $85 shipped. You can also check Craigslist and the forums buy and sell for co2 setups.



Supposively an annoying clicking noise, please tell me if this is true :)


Don't know what your talking about with the clicking noise I have the Milwaukee regulator and the red sea paintball co2 systems and they don't make a sound.

[tackful]

I got an Azoo regulator for about $60 on Ebay. The needle valve does not lend itself to fine adjustments, but it's good enough. As for a clicking noise, no, not ever.
Had DIY for 3 yrs, it was fun to play with, but finally got tired of the hassle.