CO2 leak, looking for info

3mm3 · May 22, 2012

I am looking for some help to stop this leak. I dumped an entire bottle of co2 this weekend and thought I had a bad seal to the co2 tank. Got tank filled today and almost lost entire bottle while I was out of the house. Just dumped a bunch of soapy water all over the regulator and found a leak where the high pressure guage screws into the regulator body.
What can I use to seal the threads?
Thank you

jonbar1 · May 22, 2012

Is there supposed to be a gasket or rubber washer where it screws in?

3mm3 · May 23, 2012

jonbar1 said:
Is there supposed to be a gasket or rubber washer where it screws in?

Pulled it appart this morning and found it does not have any seal or washer. Doesnt look made for one.
I was really hoping somebody had input to prevent a bad failure and get the calcium reactor running again.

I put silicon on the threads and its been curing all day long. going to reinstall it on the bottle in the morning. If the silicon is a bad idea somebody please let me know what to use. I looked all over the net and found almost no info. Best info i found was on home brew forums they mentioned a thread lock but didnt specify.....
Anyways any help would be nice. Do not want a blowout.
thanks

jonbar1 · May 23, 2012

Wish I had more experience with them to help.

Instinctively I'd use teflon tape, but not sure how well it'd work in this application.

jonbar1 · May 23, 2012

After more searching, Reef Fanatic recommends teflon taping all connections on their regulators. If that doesn't work, lots of members on the planted tank forums use co2 regulators with needle valves and you may find more info there.

Palancar · May 23, 2012

jonbar1 said:
Wish I had more experience with them to help.

Instinctively I'd use teflon tape, but not sure how well it'd work in this application.

Teflon tape is the way to go on all your threaded connections, except the one where the regulator connects to the CO2 bottle which should be the gasket disk.