CO2 / Regulator Questions

So I finally got my kegerator up and running! Trouble is, now it seems my CO2 tank is being consumed rather rapidly by my first kegged beer. I checked for leaks using soapy water, and found one and corrected by tightening the bolt. I know my keg is ok--since it was tested by Austin Homebrew before purchase. I've seen it go down by 25 psi in the past hour... is this normal? Could it be a function of temperature since my CO2 tank was at room temperature a few hours ago and is now around 40? I have my regulator set at 12psi. Any recommendations?

If you have cooled your tank then yes that is the result of the drop in pressure. Most of us sort of ignore the tank level gauge since they often go from around 600lbs at a cold temp to 0 very quickly. The only way to really tell if you are losing a lot of CO2 is to weigh the tank and see how much has been used.

I'm a new kegger as well, and I was also concerned by this. When I refrigerated my CO2 tank (freshly filled) the displayed psi dropped by 200 pounds! There's no leaks in the system. Like tcklord says, it's perfectly normal.

Make sure you're not losing pressure to an actual leak, and it'll be fine.

Good to hear this is normal! Can't wait to pull a draft of my first beer!

Cheers,