Custom CO2 Reactor

[solonavi]

When the amount of water increases, it will try to move in anywhere it could. The exit will only let an amount of water out depending on the pump used. So as the water rises, it will automatically push it's volume onto the pocket of air. Once the pressure built up reaches a certain amount, the co2 will be absorbed into the body of water. This happens continuously as long as the co2 supply is being fed, with the pump feeding water into the reactor. Since the water can absorb only so much of co2 at a time, the undissolved co2 will still form at the top of the reactor, ready to be dissolved again when the next volume of water is being fed into the reactor.

This is the part I'm puzzled. Since the pocket of CO2 is already at the top of the reactor, The water level will not rise by itself. It juz maintain at the same level when the CO2 supply cut off thus will not be able to mix with the CO2. When the Co2 supply resume, more Co2 build up and water level drop further more. That's wat I'm experiencing.

JC

[BFG]

Solonavi, after reading your post, I decided to increase my co2 supply such that the top part of the reactor is filled with co2. In about 10 minutes or so, the entire area where the co2 formed became a small pocket of co2. Here is my setup-

Tank->Eheim 1048->Unpowered 2222->External Co2 Reactor->Chiller->Tank.

Before doing the above, the reactor is filled fully with water. It was not half filled with air as what I had experienced before I've found the air leak. It is full of water before I switch on the co2 supply and purposely increase the co2. My reactor has never been half filled of air since I've found the air leak many months ago. And there is no noise coming from my pumps. I've no need to turn over the reactor to remove the air as what I used to do before.

Hope this helps!

[solonavi]

BFG, thanks for the info and going th extra miles.

My setup a little different cos I'm using a sump setup.

Tank -> Sicce pump -> External Reactor -> Sump -> Return pump

Athough the reactor is external, I place it inside my sump thus all hose connections are submerged in the water. I assumed that this will rule out any water leak issue?

Probably I'll try tuning my CO2 injection rate so that the amount of CO2 accumlated is limited.

Cheers
JC

[BFG]

You may need to change your setup. Not a drastic change but it will eliminate 1 of the pump. Here's my suggestion.

Tank->Sump->Return pump->Reactor->Tank.

This will eliminate 1 pump and lessen the electricity usage. If you want to add a chiller, plumb it after the reactor.

Hope this helps.

[solonavi]

I had gave this setup some serious thought b4 but decide not to use it cos the reactor will have significantly reduce the flow rate by quite abit. Flowrate will be reduced and the eheim 1262 will probably wear faster.

JC

[neon]

I had gave this setup some serious thought b4 but decide not to use it cos the reactor will have significantly reduce the flow rate by quite abit. Flowrate will be reduced and the eheim 1262 will probably wear faster.

JC

I am using 1262 pump now for my 2060 filter, and connect up to the 1HP chiller and then split into 2 sides return to the tank. It is 3400L /h and it is strong, I had done quite a lot of experiment with different external/internal reactors (NA type, taiwan brands, few DIYs) with various connection-combination between pump,carnister,chiller. It is more than your reactor can handle and most of the CO2 will be gush out, and the pump is designed to fit for carnister filter also, which the drag will be even greater than your pump to reactor alone.