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Tom, thanks for sharing this wonderful idea of yours with us in AQ. The famous venturi design now comes with external version
.
Some of you might find this reactor to be, well, the best reactor for this method and also one of the cheapest.
http://www.barrreport.com/articles/3...ed=1#post19781
Regards,
Tom Barr
Tom, thanks for sharing this wonderful idea of yours with us in AQ
Last edited by uklau; 10th Oct 2007 at 08:22.
Cheers,
U.K.Lau
Yep and it's pretty dang useful. Bubble counter, venturi mist, external reactor etc all in one. 10-15$. Hard to beat, no cleaning the bugger either!
Disc are great etc, but I hate to clean them.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Is this a external reactor ?
Yippie!! Reptiles and Fishies!
Learning to read does help.Originally Posted by Plantbrain
Yes.
Regards,
Tom Barr
When I works as a meat cutter, helping the blind to see was part of my job
You folks will certainly want to try this, it's about 7-8X cheaper that a similar commercial model and very effective.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Tom,
What is the long smaller tube for?
That's where you add CO2 gas.
It acts as a bubble counter because you can see the bubbles in the clear tube.
The shorter one on top of the tube head is for low CO2 gas bubble intake, however, you can make that tube leading back to the suction side of the powerhead longer or shorter depending on how deep you want the gas build up bubble inside the reactor tube to get before the venturi action degases it and sucks it back out again.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Regards,
Tom Barr
Tom,
What confuse me is there are 3 inlets. What is the one at the side do?
What I understand is the one at the side is co2 inlet and the shorter at the top is for the venturi action. That is why I ask what is the long small tube does? Now you say that is for co2 inlet that what is side inlet do..
Even though I saw the text as "external reactor" , I noticed that there seems to be a burp holes also I was puzzle with the usage of a powerhead with an external reactor on non-sump setup will be kind of odd .When I works as a meat cutter, helping the blind to see was part of my job
Regards,
Tom Barr
Water pump out to react and flow back to tank. Various bending and hose in and out will reduce the flow greatly.
Tom, I also DIY a external reactor with a PVC pipe , it can achieve very high CO2 dissolve rate with no mist spit out even if I turn up with CO2 injection to more than 30 bubbles/second (in fact to a rate which can't possible count). As I don't want to take chances with this fully dissolved CO2, I also deployed internal CO2 mist method with CO2 feed to a powerhead suction and output using rainbar spread from the lower back of the tank to the front.
I am having 6'x2'x2' tank , 2 x 150 W MH , following EI (Sat/Mon/Wed : KNO3 - 1 tablespoon, H2PO4 - 1/2 tablespoon, H2SO4 - 1/2 tablespoon, Sun/Tues/Thurs - 60ML profito trace element), weekly WC 50%, but lately BBA is coming back together with BGA on my dense japan hairgrass.
Water circulation : a) water return from canister/CO2 reactor/chiller (position at lower part and in the front side of the tank)
b) power head with internal reactor for CO2 mist with rainbar spreading from lower back of the tank
c) power head on top (6" below water surface) to move the top part of the tank water. I can see water is moving at the top as well as bottom of the tank as I observe the Co2 mist rises up slowly.
Not sure which part of the equation is the problem. Appreciate you can enlighten me on this . Thanks !
Cheers
No, you simply use the right size powerhead, generally for a 50 gal or smalled tank, 200gph is fine.
The flow is not reduce that much and it does not influence the canister Filter flow this way at all.
You can modify the design a bit to accommodate in line use, but requires a small hole in the tubing post filter and pore reactor tube the burp holes draw gas from. They atomize the gas again and send it out via CO2 mist.
Well, on a 180 gallon tank, you should be running 4 bubbles a second or so with say 400-500w of light and full planting.Tom, I also DIY a external reactor with a PVC pipe , it can achieve very high CO2 dissolve rate with no mist spit out even if I turn up with CO2 injection to more than 30 bubbles/second (in fact to a rate which can't possible count).
As I don't want to take chances with this fully dissolved CO2, I also deployed internal CO2 mist method with CO2 feed to a powerhead suction and output using rainbar spread from the lower back of the tank to the front.
This is from a standard 1/8" orifice.
Not 30
I use that much on the 1600 gal, but use a flow meter rather than bubbles.
Add some Excel or equivalent and try and watch the CO2 closer and make sure you have decent flow through the tank. You need good CO2 asap the lights come on.I am having 6'x2'x2' tank , 2 x 150 W MH , following EI (Sat/Mon/Wed : KNO3 - 1 tablespoon, H2PO4 - 1/2 tablespoon, H2SO4 - 1/2 tablespoon, Sun/Tues/Thurs - 60ML profito trace element), weekly WC 50%, but lately BBA is coming back together with BGA on my dense japan hairgrass.
Something's up if you are beyond the visual ability to count the CO2 bubbles.Water circulation : a) water return from canister/CO2 reactor/chiller (position at lower part and in the front side of the tank)
b) power head with internal reactor for CO2 mist with rainbar spreading from lower back of the tank
c) power head on top (6" below water surface) to move the top part of the tank water. I can see water is moving at the top as well as bottom of the tank as I observe the Co2 mist rises up slowly.
Not sure which part of the equation is the problem. Appreciate you can enlighten me on this . Thanks !
Cheers
It means you have little accuracy in measuring the CO2.
I have had BBA float in/out of tanks, every time it has been CO2 related.
every time. Even when I thought it wasn't, it was.
We all get burned by CO2 at some point if you stay in the hobby long enough.
So:
Excel
Reduce light down to help reduce CO2 demand.
If you can raise the lights, that's best(move them 10-12 cm higher).
Try:
3x a week
2 teaspoons of KNO3
3/4 Teaspoon KH2PO4
1/2 teaspoon MgSO4
60mls traces
Note, you can do daily if you wish as well:
1 teaspoon
1/3 teaspoon KH2PO4
1/4 teaspoon MgSO4
30mls traces
You can move the water more on the surface and add more CO2, but there's not much CO2 getting into the water.
About 4 bubbles a second with a wet/dry and over flow is what I use on a well packed tank with 500w of PC/MH lighting.
With a canister only, you might have reduced flows(wet/drys are very stable flow wise, canisters do clog and reduce flows, problems often start then, after cleaning good pearling returns etc), while it may appear that the CO2 is stable, there are often factors such as clogged filters, leaks, poor solenoids, too much light, etc etc.
I cannot predict every method some one can mess something up, but I've done it enough to know BBA is a CO2 related issue exclusively.
We isolated that back 12 years ago.
But this is about a DIY CO2 reactor..........
Regards,
Tom Barr
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