CO2 questions

[Andy's Fish Den]

For Christmas, I bought myself a regulator, diffuser, and all the necessary stuff to put CO2 in one of my tanks except I still need to go to a gas supply place and get a bottle and I'm going to get one of the drop checker things that changes colors to indicate if the co2 level is good in the tank. As I was looking on Amazon and other websites last night, I saw a splitter thing that you can get to run several tanks off of one bottle and regulator. Has anybody done this method? I have several tanks I would use co2 in, but having a bottle, and regulator for each tank would not only be expensive, but would take up a lot of room in my small room.

[KBOzzie59]

I just run a single line and Tee off as required.  No need for some overpriced splitter at the regulator.

Edit:  You will want a needle valve at each tank.

Another Edit:  Something like this for each tank.

 

 

And these are the Tee's I use.

Edited December 23, 2020 by KBOzzie59

[Jack.of.all.aquariums]

I've used a 6 way splitter that had needle valves for each. It works fine once you get them all set but I wouldn't recommend it to a first time co2 user. The issue is every time you adjust one it messes with the others. Also I had issues if I ran one inline diffuser and the others running regular diffusers because of the difference in pressure required. Probably easier if you only split to 2 or 3 tanks of the same size using them same diffusers. 

[Andy's Fish Den]

On 12/23/2020 at 7:26 PM, Jack.of.all.aquariums said:

I've used a 6 way splitter that had needle valves for each. It works fine once you get them all set but I wouldn't recommend it to a first time co2 user. The issue is every time you adjust one it messes with the others. Also I had issues if I ran one inline diffuser and the others running regular diffusers because of the difference in pressure required. Probably easier if you only split to 2 or 3 tanks of the same size using them same diffusers. 

I was planning to only do three tanks at max to start, and see how it goes. I had also already planned to use the same diffuser in each tank. I had kind of figured that when I would mess with one needle valve to adjust that tank, it could change things on the others as well. All three tanks are same size, 40 breeder and just use co-op sponge filters, same lights, only difference in them is substrates.