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I've just installed a simple CO2 injector into my 20 gallon planted tank. I can see that the CO2 is getting to the bubble counter (a single bubble leaks into the water in the bubble counter and then floats quickly to the top. However, I can't tell if the CO2 is going through the second airline and into the tank. Do you usually see the bubbles coming through the diffuser?

What are you using for a defuser?

I just have a simple airstone that about an inch long and half an inch wide

Yes you should see the are bubble come from the air-stone. BTW this is not the best method of getting CO2 into your tank. You want the CO2 to have as much contact with the water for the longest possible amount of time. I would suspect you have a leak somewhere in the system between the bubble counter and the air stone in the tank.

For a simple approach. Get rid of the bubble counter, us a old gravel vac (the hard tub part) mount it in the back bottom of your tank at about a 45 degree angle. Then run your CO2 line thru the hole in the top of the gravel vac tube seal the hole with some silicone.

Run the line deep enough that it stays submerged but not so far that the bubbles do not go into the tube. Use the water line inside the tube as a bubble counter and a defuser in one.

This will work best if you position the end of the tube near something that causes current in your tank, say like a filter intake tube.

HTH
Shannen

Ok thanks, I'll set that up now. But should the hard part of the gravel vac should be completely submerged?

Yes, put it all the way down to the bottom of your tank. The open end closer to the gravel, and again at about a 45-75 degree angel.

Keep in mind the angle you put it at, the more surface area the CO2 has with the water the better the saturation exchange will be. But you do not want it so horizontal that the CO2 doesn't for the most part stay inside the tube.

An occasional bubble from it is ok.