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CO2 Regulation, Bombast and Shame!
Mark Gilmore wrote: "If you are having trouble with an open loop system and
think more precise regulation is required I would suggest you really need a
pH controller. Then I would claim that probably ANY regulator will do the
job. If you are trying to save money, I would also suggest that your time
would be better spent working a part-time job to afford the right equipment,
rather than fighting with a system that is doomed from the get go."
The regulator might work just fine, but as soon as the pH probe crapped out
and the controller turned the CO2 on full time, you might end up killing
fish, as has been reported here on the APD. Very few active mechanical
systems are fail safe. While I can afford any aquarium equipment I want, I
just hate to see someone recommending something as expensive as a controller
as a REQUIREMENT for a CO2 system "to function reasonably." I just don't
believe this is the case.
Consider a simple piece of equipment such as a Dupla low pressure CO2
reactor. (As George likes to say an expensive, but elegant piece of
plastic.) One can open up a hole in the side of the reactor at any one of
several levels to act as a safety valve. I have this type of CO2 reactor in
one of my tanks and as an experiment, I cranked up the CO2 full blast
resulting in an outpouring of bubbles from the overflow hole. The pH
dropped slightly over the course of an hour, but not by very much. The
excess CO2 just bubbled off in large bubbles and escaped to the air. Such
an arrangement is not "doomed from the get go" in any sense of the phrase
and probably would work just as well, if not better than a controller (since
the safety feature is passive (CO2 is lighter than water) rather than
active.
Regards, Steve Dixon