Aquaria Central

[Mr.Firemouth]

Has anyone ever used green silicone tubing on a pressurized Co2 system and come home to discover that 800p.s.i. has emptied out of the bottle? My system goes from the regulator to the solenoid( which is very hot!) to the needle valve to the air stone under the intake of the canister filter. I used wire ties to secure the tubing to the canister plumbing.

[Richer]

i use silicon tubing (the green kind) with no problems.

check all of your connections using a little bit of dish soap and water. if there is a leak, you should see the dish soap/water mix bubbling a little. Also use teflon on your connections as an extra leak proofing measure.

HTH
-Richer.

[Shiftaltumlock]

I dont quite get what you are saying. Are you saying that all the gas escaped from your Co2 Tank?

Is there any tubing going from regulator to solenoid?
Is there any tubing going from solenoid to neddle valve?

If either of the above is true, I would say that your setup is wrong. You should not use tubing inline before the needle valve. You are asking for problems when you do this. Only run the tubing after the needle valve. This is very low pressure at this point and should not cause any problems.

Use fittings to connect all components upto the needle valve. And leak test it as Richer suggested.

BTW: How much pressure are you driving the solenoid/needle valve with? You should be pushing between 15 to 25 psi on the low side of the regulator.

[Mr.Firemouth]

The needle valve and the solenoid are from PETSOLUTIONS catalog and only have air line tubing connections. The tank is empty and the psi is 9.

[Robert H]

You need to get tubing made for CO2. Silicone tubing gets hard and cracks over time, it gets micro leaks. Polyethrine tubing is rated for gas and is much stronger than silicone tubing.

Robert H

[Mcdaphnia]

"Polyethrine tubing" I cannot find this. I did find nylon tubing, polyethelene tubing, and polypropylene tubing. Can any of them be used instead?