I am all ready to build up my regulator. Have a ll of the parts, pieces, and pipe compounds necessary. Now I just need to find the time to put it all together and hook it up! Hopefully that will happen on Tuesday.
Complete Tank Redesign Project - Lessons, Learnings and Ramblings of Coach_z
- Thread starter coach_z
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Any updates on the Macrandra? I couldn't save mine, but would love to try again... If you have success let me know
Macrandra is slowly coming back a bit, nothing impressive. I should have my co2 back up and running soon which should help it a lot. Until then, I have no new updates.
Assembled my regulator last night. Pictures? None because all you are really doing is screwing everything together. I'll get some shots once it is done.
Last night I finished setting up my co2 regulator. I wanted to get the thing onto the tank so badly, but I only had a used nylon crush washer from my Milwaukee regulator. Even though it was used, it appeared as though it would fit. Unfortunately it was slightly too large, so I trimmed a little off around the edges. I wouldn’t recommend doing this at all, but It appeared to make a good seal. NO LEAKS! (yet) lol.
I hooked everything up and realized just how heavy the regulator was!
Notice in this picture my foot. Its purpose was to hold my co2 cylinder upright so that it did not fall over.
A shot from the side
I cracked open the cylinder and saw the tank pressure gauge move up nice and smoothly which was a relief as this was a used regulator.
I started turning the regulator valve and became a bit worried because I got several turns into it and nothing registered on the working pressure side. A few more turns and the PSI slowly started to rise. It rose in a very slow, well regulated (no pun intended), manner and was very smooth. I was very impressed. My Milwaukee regulator (if you can even call it a regulator) jumped from 0 to 20 and was practically impossible to get stable.
Plugged in the Fabco-Air solenoid and got a great stream of bubbles shooting into my tank. Applied and removed power a few times and found that this worked much better than the one on my Milwaukee regulator. Bubbles stopped relatively quickly after removing power from the solenoid.
The NV-55 was wide open as I tested this all out and it was time to start fine tuning the flow. Started turning the control (and once again I was worried because nothing was changing) and the flow slowly started to calm down. I don’t remember the thread per inch on the NV but it takes quite a few turns to get the thing to slow the flow down. But this is desired and it was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. A few more turns and I got the bubble rate to be exactly what I wanted it to be. And it stayed at that rate for the next few minutes. And it stayed at that rate for the next hour. And it stayed at that rate for the hour after that. And then….I turned it off and went to bed.
Long story short, this system is incredible and has my socks blown off from the second I received the regulators and check valves in the mail a few months ago.
Bubble counter:
You may have noticed that I do not have a bubble counter. But I have been referencing my bubble rates. How I do that? Well, I have my co2 running directly into the intake of my Marineland C-360 canister filter. I have my tubing zip tied along the intake tube and I can see the bubble coming out of my tubing and going into my intake. This is what I will be using and referring to as my “bubble counter”. In the long run, all I care about is a green drop checker. The bubble rate just lets me know that everything appears to be OK. The good and bad thing about this is that the bubble makes a noise as it runs through the intake. It makes no noise going through the canister. The bad thing is that it makes a noise, the good thing is that I can hear my bubble rate and count it.
I hooked everything up and realized just how heavy the regulator was!
Notice in this picture my foot. Its purpose was to hold my co2 cylinder upright so that it did not fall over.
A shot from the side
I cracked open the cylinder and saw the tank pressure gauge move up nice and smoothly which was a relief as this was a used regulator.
I started turning the regulator valve and became a bit worried because I got several turns into it and nothing registered on the working pressure side. A few more turns and the PSI slowly started to rise. It rose in a very slow, well regulated (no pun intended), manner and was very smooth. I was very impressed. My Milwaukee regulator (if you can even call it a regulator) jumped from 0 to 20 and was practically impossible to get stable.
Plugged in the Fabco-Air solenoid and got a great stream of bubbles shooting into my tank. Applied and removed power a few times and found that this worked much better than the one on my Milwaukee regulator. Bubbles stopped relatively quickly after removing power from the solenoid.
The NV-55 was wide open as I tested this all out and it was time to start fine tuning the flow. Started turning the control (and once again I was worried because nothing was changing) and the flow slowly started to calm down. I don’t remember the thread per inch on the NV but it takes quite a few turns to get the thing to slow the flow down. But this is desired and it was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. A few more turns and I got the bubble rate to be exactly what I wanted it to be. And it stayed at that rate for the next few minutes. And it stayed at that rate for the next hour. And it stayed at that rate for the hour after that. And then….I turned it off and went to bed.
Long story short, this system is incredible and has my socks blown off from the second I received the regulators and check valves in the mail a few months ago.
Bubble counter:
You may have noticed that I do not have a bubble counter. But I have been referencing my bubble rates. How I do that? Well, I have my co2 running directly into the intake of my Marineland C-360 canister filter. I have my tubing zip tied along the intake tube and I can see the bubble coming out of my tubing and going into my intake. This is what I will be using and referring to as my “bubble counter”. In the long run, all I care about is a green drop checker. The bubble rate just lets me know that everything appears to be OK. The good and bad thing about this is that the bubble makes a noise as it runs through the intake. It makes no noise going through the canister. The bad thing is that it makes a noise, the good thing is that I can hear my bubble rate and count it.
congrats. Yeah there is a huge difference in weight of the my new regulator vs the milwakee one. Congrats on finally getting your system set up. Hopefully you'll get amazing growth now that your system is 10000x better.
what is the working pressure you have set?
what is the working pressure you have set?
