Steel CO2 Check Valve
Our steel check valves are housed in a single piece of stainless steel which is naturally resistant to CO2. They prevent the flow of water back from your aquarium into your CO2 system when gas flow is turned off - giving a extra layer of protection for your equipment and allowing CO2 to resume flowing into your tank very quickly after your system is switched back on.
These checkvalves are designed exclusively to work with high pressure CO2 and will not work with low-pressure air pumps. They are designed to be under pressure at all times and will never crack or leak even in the unlikely event of a failure as the body is made from solid metal.
Our metal check-valves are lightweight and are roughly the same diameter as the CO2 line so they won't dangle or ruin the clean look of your CO2 system. You'll barely even notice that it's there but it will play an important role in maximizing the efficiency of your aquarium CO2 system while protecting sensitive components from water backflow.
These check valves naturally maintain a 20-30psi of pressure within your aquarium CO2 circuit when the solenoid valve (or manual gas control) is switched off. This makes it much faster for CO2 to begin flowing into your aquarium when the gas is switched back on and creates a mild-backpressure on your bubble counter to minimize evaporation. When used properly these can keep your bubble counter water level stable for weeks or months at a time so you don't have to constantly top it off.
Common plastic check valves are designed to be used with low pressure aquarium air-pumps and when used in a pressurized system, often leak a significant amount of CO2 from the plastic housing with no symptoms - wasting a ton of gas. Long term exposure to the acidic nature of CO2 and water will cause these to become more brittle overtime and develop new microfractures that leak further eroding the efficiency of your CO2 delivery system.
NOTE: These check-valves require a significant amount of "cracking pressure" and cannot be used with air pumps. They are compatible with our EZ-PRO CO2 regulator as well as other advanced regulators with adjustable working pressure. We recommend using these only with regulators that can deliver a consistent 45psi of working pressure to operate both this check-valve and diffuser.
