Acatrow

I recently purchased an electric solenoid to save on co2. I hooked the paintball style regulator to the new solenoid with regular aquarium tubing. I had about two feet of tubing betwwen the solenoid and the regulator the first night i had it set up. I was watching to see if it would shut off when the timer went off and it did. I went to sleep and was awoken by a loud sound by the tank and looked to see what it was and found that the airline tubing was blown. i shortened it the next day to about two inxhes of tubing and when the solenoid kicked off same thing. Next day i tried differant clear tubing instead of blue stuff and same thing happened, blown tubing. Any suggestions on how i can link the regulator and solenoid so that the tubing will not blow up.
Also does the pH raising and lowering with levels of co2 affect my fish in any way?

davemonkey

The solenoid needs to be directly connected to the regulator. Otherwise, when the solenoid shuts, the ailine tubing is backing up all the pressure of the CO2 tank with no place to vent the pressure. The pressure in the tank if way too much for airline tubing to withstand.

Regulator, solenoid, then airline tubing. The only thing between the solenoid and the regulator should be a brass (or other suitable material) fitting.

bosmahe1

It depends on the regulator I think. I've hooked up my clippard solenoid to my regulator with tubing and it doesn't blow off at all. It sounds like the working pressure of the regulator is getting to high when the solenoid blocks flow. I'm currently using a Draught Technologies regulator and the working pressure will go up just a few psi when the solenoid closes. When I was testing with my Red sea regulator, the working pressure gauge showed the pressure continue to increase when the solenoid closed. I knew that couldn't be good so, I put the Draught Technologies back on.