Re: Houston CO2

[Bill Wichers <billw at waveform_net>]

>  I have been making some calls today getting prices for a CO2 system.
>
>  So far I have found 10lb bottles for $90 and 20lb bottles for $120 - a
> regulator from a home brew supply for $59 and I have yet to find a needle 
> valve.
>
>  Is a 20lb bottle considered to big for a 125g aquarium?

You can't have too big of a gas tank for your aquarium. The larger the CO2 
bottle you get the less often you'll have to have it filled, and usually 
there are some cost savings with the larger tanks due to quantity discounts 
and the fact that a 20lb tank is less than twice the cost of a 10lb tank 
etc... I'd go get a 20lb tank (which I believe is the largest you can 
transport in a normal vehicle according to DOT regs), as long as it will 
physically fit in the space you have available for it.

>  I was hoping to find out if these prices are about avg. or if I should
> continue to look?

Been a while since I've priced CO2. I used to get LCO2 (liquid CO2) bottles 
in large 60-80lb sizes years ago for industrial uses. I got the stuff from 
AGA which is a large industrial gas supply house that has all kinds of 
gases available. They're a pretty big outfit and you probably can find 
local stores in your area. They primarily serve industrial companies 
(welding and the like), which might help you find them in the yellow pages.

        -Bill


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