Gassed my fish to death :(

[bob965]

I recently added pressurized CO2 to my planted 40 breeder. I used the Milwaukee regulator/solenoid/needle valve/bubble counter all-in-one unit. It was pretty difficult to get a consistent bubble count. The instructions said to do the bulk of the adjusting with the regulator, and only use the needle valve for fine tuning if necessary, to prevent the valve from causing backpressure, so that's what I did. I would set it, then come back awhile later and find that it had slowed down considerably, and have to adjust it again. The first few days I used it, I was home when the timer first turned it on. The bubble count would be much faster than when I had set it the previous day, and I had to adjust it. Today was the first day I was away when it turned on. I came home to find it bubbling like crazy, drop checker bright yellow, all fish dead.

Did I do something wrong, or is this not a very good unit?

 

[angelojg22]

that sucks! i would think it was the systems falt cause it shouldn't adjust on its own

 

[douahe]

I have the Milwaukee as well. I had the same problem with trying to control the bubble count with the regulator. It just doesn't work well. After playing around with it a bit, I just set the needle valve pressure at about 10 and then used the needle valve to control the bubble count. That has worked fine. The needle valve is not as fine a thread as would be nice so it makes fine tuning difficult.