It can seem real time, but if I do an experiment such as breath hold or other big breathing change and wait till I see it, it’s about 5 seconds from memory.
For the water I use these types of tubes: https://contechealth.com/collections/hot-sales/products/tube-adapter-for-co2-module-etco2-capnograph-respiratory-cable-for-cms8000-vet-veterinary?_pos=3&_sid=3eab643da&_ss=r
They remove the water, using that gold color threaded thingy in the tube it attracts the water vapor and releases it out of the tube, but not perfectly, when I stop if there is still water in the tube—which is very often especially if used in the Winter with low humidity, I leave the machine running without me being plugged into it from 5-30 minutes depending on how much water was in the tube to help clear it because without the airflow it won’t clear out.
I also figured out you can reuse the water filters by just ripping the ends off the tube they are just forced onto a tight connection. Then you can have cheaper cannulas without it and cut a spot on those and force it back on. It works better than expected because water filters are not permanently attached its just by tightness of the connection. Then if you throw out a cannula for sanitary reasons you can just take out the water filter and use it with another new one, I also experimented with attaching two of them on one cannula to make the filter even more powerful and it seems to work without messing up the readings as far as I can tell. Not sure if it actually works better, but I use it that way now.
If you end up buying it and the cannulas to get the best price look on that site, ebay, and aliexpress and buy whatever has the best price. I can also probably sell you some tubes with and without filters if you want them for really low cost way below what they sell them at because I bought way too many, though they are probably close to expired based upon the date they put on them—can tell you the exact date if you want to know.
I only used the ones from contec and looked for other options but it was hard figuring out which would fit and eventually gave up on trying to find cheaper ones, other than if you can find a page that sells them in larger quantities they then end up less per unit. Also the ones from contec are no smells at all, I did buy some on amazon that I thought could work and they didn’t plus they smelled really bad because the type of plastic. So the contec ones are at least of good quality material
Also going to add the ones I bought on amazon that didn’t work were much thicker than the contec ones, the connector did work though, but I think the thickness of the space in the tubing may need to be the same perhaps to work, and the contec ones are very narrow. Thicker ones are probably for oxygen delivery and other uses and not co2 reading.