CO2 Costs
 

I just filled up my 10lb Co2 tank for my calcium reactor. No it's not the first time.:lol: $43.50 seems pretty steep in price. What are you guys paying?

For my 20 pound bottles it was 36 in the city it would last me about 2 months, no leaks :wink:

That's why I switched to dosing ballin salts saves going there to deal with them, I always keep 2 bottles to save the hassle of running out.

Yea I'd say I'm getting hosed
I asked for a price on a 20lb bottle for a spare and it's $250

It might have something to do with other agricultural uses around BC causing a supply shortage.

I pay 45 for my 20lb including getting it tested

I get 80 lb tanks filled up by Praxair for $60... $40 for 10 lb seems excessive. My work gets a discount, so I'd expect 80 lbs to about $80-100 from a regular customer.


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I called Praxair and its $28 there. I'm pretty sure a local reefer told me that Praxair will no longer fill or I would of went there. 2 fills ago at the same place I went today had to recertify my bottle. I'm betting the girl charged me the same as she said she looked at my last invoice.

Tell them you're fighting Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect by trapping CO2 emissions and storing them for humankind in your tanks.:wink: Ask for a Green discount next time :biggrin:

I have about 250 gallons of water all together my main display is a 120 gallon sps tank. With that said my reactor has been running on this system for over a year and a half now my guage has barely even gone down in that time maybe 50 psi why are you guys going thru so much co2 I am using a jet stream 1 Not sure of the bottle size.by the way I have a lot of sps sucking calcium up.

http://i864.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps8f3tfen9.jpg

Not sure why I was going through so much, before on the 250g the bottle would last 4-6 months and I had way more corals and clams it seemed, water volume now is 550 gallons, running a large calcium reactor and was running it off a needle valve about 4 drops per second. Switched to dosing and at 250 ml a say

Slow leaks are pretty common for Ca reactors, most people don't even know they have them. Charge your line to double your running pressure, close the tank valve and see if it holds pressure for an hour, if it doesn't you have a leak. You could also have a leak in the actual reactor so you could pressure test that as well but you need to be more careful when doing so. Most reactors on the market are also pretty terrible at dissolving CO2 and/or making the most of it before the effluent, so some reactors are more efficient when it comes to CO2 usage. I would say A 20lb bottle should last about a year on the average system but it's highly variable, one of my previous systems (SPS dominant, 200G total) ran on the same CO2 tank for it's entire lifespan and while that was only around 2.5 years once the reactor was setup and I supplemented with Kalk it gives an idea how long a tank could last. IMO 2 months for 10lbs is way too short and something is off.

For CO2 here in Calgary it's around $30 to $40 for a 20lb bottle and probably not much less for a 10lb. Pretty much everywhere will also charge an extra $10 for expedited service, so you can't wait a week or so it costs more. I now use Oxipro just because they do an exchange system, you just exchange tanks so no waiting and I think it's around $40 but there's no hydro-test or other inspection cost ever added.

Do you mean bubbles per second or the effluent from your reactor?

From other bc aquaria forum site , people there say it is around $20 for a 10lb cylinder at its cheapest... mayb $30 - $36 is standard everywhere else in the GVRD area.
Does not include hydro testing of course which might be another $30 or so if you want that. They use fire extinguishing refill places, marine places that have the machines to do the refills. I assume up north, they charge more but $60 is quite pricey.

msjboy

Bubbles per second

Yeah I was using oxypro exchange bottles as well, I may have had a slow leak at reactor or tubing somewhere, I could charge the regulator and it would hold for days. Anyway I went away from this at least for now.

I was paying about 18 bucks for a 20 lbs bottle and it would last me 8 months on a system with about 150 gal of water.

Steve

I think I paid $32 a couple of weeks ago for 10lbs

I called the place to make sure I wasn't overcharged and that's the price they charge, was no error. I guess Praxair is where I'll be getting it next time.

45 for ten pound in medicine hat

Just checking on prices here. Lease at one is around $125/yr. App $35 for 20#refill. Like Steve,s just drop off and get a new one.

With own tank at another place, about $50 for 20# refill and about $40 for 10#. That seems a bit expensive.

Think i will go with the lease option?

where did you call Doug?

depending on how long it takes to use the tank up, buying it is a lot cheeper. you figure if you have a high usage and use two tanks per year leasing it is going to cost you about 195/year for gass, if you own the tank and pay 50.00 which I think is high it is only going to cost you 100 per year. at one tank it is even worse. tank rentals only would work if you are using more than 7 tanks a year

Steve

Leasing for $125/year is pretty expensive. I bought my tank from Oxi-Pro, if you buy one of their tanks you can do the exchange option, you can rent too but they told me it's much cheaper just to buy it. I paid $200 for the tank and there is no additional charges each year.

Several different places.

Agreed sounds expensive. Im sure he said that the cost every year for lease plus gas but I had better check. I do like your deal.

Couple of years ago I had to get my bottle hydro tested since it was time expired. Took it to Kelowna to a 'safety' supply center that does mostly fire extinguishing equipment fill ups & is qualified to test the bottles. No one in Vernon could do the hydro test. Don't recall the cost, but with the hydro testing & fill up it was over $100. The Praxair guys here in Vernon would have shipped the bottle to the coast to get filled. Ridiculous. Before that I had it filled at a paintball supply retail shop in Vernon that has since gone out of business. Not sure that guy knew what he was doing since the paintball canisters are much smaller. I think he probably over pressurized it. Last fill up was here in Vernon at a local gun shop that has a qualified dude to look after it. He charged me $15 cash.

I don't have a calcium reactor, I use my CO2 bottle to carbonate water, soda stream concentrate for pop & rotgut home brew beer. Good for another 3 years before the next hydro test.

thats even pricy, a hydro and new valve is 35 bucks, heck I only pay 50 bucks for filling my 180 cuft welding bottle and thats a try mix which is more expensive than strait co2. I know the cost is jacked a little for smaller bottles as the hook up time is the same, i'll check and see what a couple places here charge. in victoria I used to get it charged at a fire extinguisher place for 30ish bucks.

Steve

Searched through my financial records and found the transaction. Outfit in Kelowna is/was Kost Fire Safety, now part of Mircom Engineered Systems. I remember the gentleman who looked after me saying that the price of CO2 had recently gone up (this was April 2012) and that his business was the only one in the Okanagan qualified to hydro test CO2 bottles. Total cost to hydro test & fill 10lb bottle was $103.04. Couldn't get same day service & had to leave it for pickup a week or so later, since it's a busy place. Maybe he was feeding my a line, dunno, but I did a lot of searching until I found that place. Thankfully I can get cheaper refills at the local gun shop here in Vernon until the next time the bottle needs the hydro test. If you can find a significantly better deal in Kamloops for hydro testing, I'd be interested. 40 minutes to Kelowna or 1 hour to Kamloops, fuel money pretty close to the same. With no apparent competition in the area, I guess they can charge what they want. I had to chuckle as well at the 'price increase' in CO2, thinking to myself I'm doing them a favour to take it off their hands since everywhere else large corporations are paying for their CO2 emissions & or buying carbon credits. It's a strange world.

hi Mike, I did some checking today, the place I bought my bottle and 2 others have closed up here in town, so that leaves only a couple places now so I have to look some more. another thing I found out is if you rent or buy a bottle from places like air liquid they stamp there name on the bottle collar which means you have to take it back to them for filling and othe shops can get finned for filling them. if there is no company name stamp on the bottle then you can go anywhere, but never let them exchange the bottle, always wait while they fill it so you get your bottle back.

KMS tools here sells unstamped bottles, but they cannot fill strait co2 (which I don't understand as they fill co2 argon mix) they figure a 20 lb CO2 bottle to buy (they have to bring them in) is close to 200.00 bucks and they can't fill it so you would be taking it to one of the other two places in town to get it filled, so I have to look into thoes yet also.

Steve

For &&^%$ sakes. You would think I could find a place t fill my co2 tank. Is that so hard to do. Type in for co2 and I get a 100 places to fill propane. Good gawd, what part does google not understand.

:bad-word:

So I guess anyone on Cannreef refills co2 in Kamloops?

I haven't read the whole thread, but aren't there any welding supply places where you are... like Barry Hamill?

Hmmm. Not sure. Will look for them. Thanks Warren

nope. they cannot do strait co2 as all the small ones have closed and all we have is prax air now. Doug have you looked for a fire extinguisher place?

Steve

Not yet Steve. I can't remember the one checked before. Perhaps I will do a search on them

maybe try http://www.nutechfire.calls.net/fire..._services.html
http://checkmatefire.ca/services/fire-extinguishers/

http://www.praxair.com/gases/buy-liq...on-dioxide-gas
don't know if Praxair will fill any bottles but there own though.

could try air liquid also.

also any home brewing supply places might have co2 or know where.

Steve

I bought my welding tank from falcon before they closed but the big companies want to rent you tanks not have you buy them

Ya I rented from Praxair for my last one. Should have just stayed with them. Have my own 5# now. Perhaps I will go back there and sell my new tank.

Del Selin Gunsmith Ltd
2803 28 St Vernon, BC V1T 4Z5
(250) 545-6413

This is where I got my last refill. Good price, but call ahead before you make the trip to Vernon from Kamloops. Not everyone minding the shop is qualified to fill CO2 bottles.

Found a refill place at $2/lb. which is reasonable. Thanks for all the help guys.

well where is it?

Steve

Its a secret :heh:

Share the secret Doug. I fill mine at hardcore paintball in Kelowna. Good to know about the Vernon place