21 How does the compressed gas method work?
Description
This article is from the Aquaria: Plants FAQ, by multiple authors.
21 How does the compressed gas method work?
A compressed gas cylinder supplies CO2 at a high pressure of 800-1200
PSI. This is dropped to 5-20 PSI through a regulator, and reduced to a
few bubbles per second by a fine-control "needle valve". This slow
bubbling must be dissolved in your aquarium's water, through either a
gas reactor (which lets water and gas mix in a chamber much like a
trickle filter), an inverted jar (which just lets the gas diffuse into
the water slowly), or by injecting the bubbles into the intake of a
power or canister filter (the impeller "chops" them up into smaller
bubbles, many of which dissolve). The reactor is the most efficient
method, while the power filter injection is the easiest to try.
It is important to have control over the rate of injection, as too
much CO2 can kill your fish. Expensive "automatic" systems use an
electronic pH meter to regulate the amount of CO2 in the water by
shutting off the gas when the pH drops too low. "Manual" systems
require you to start with very low injection and gradually increase
over several days, all the time carefully monitoring pH drops and CO2
bubble rate in order to find the correct needle valve setting.
Construction and operational details can be found in the later CO2
SECTION.
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