External Co2 Reactor

[akoh]

Hi Ppl, is the External Co2 Reactor any good (effectiveness)coz' thinking of buying one from NA, Thks.

Safe Diving !
akoh

[akoh]

Hi Ppl, is the External Co2 Reactor any good (effectiveness)coz' thinking of buying one from NA, Thks.

Safe Diving !
akoh

[akoh]

Hi Ppl, is the External Co2 Reactor any good (effectiveness)coz' thinking of buying one from NA, Thks.

Safe Diving !
akoh

[akoh]

Hi Ppl, is the External Co2 Reactor any good (effectiveness)coz' thinking of buying one from NA, Thks.

Safe Diving !
akoh

[vinz]

Pros:
- Very effective. No bubbles escape.
- For large tanks, you can split the return pipe after the reactor and get better distribution of CO2.
- Less one unsightly device in tank.
- No need to run long CO2 piping.

Cons:
- Pain in the *** to prime/restart the filter.
- Causes Eheim 2227/2229 wet/dry function not to work. (Ask Benetay for details)

Either:
- Slows down the current a bit.

Overall, it's worth it for larger tanks.

[benetay]

Got the last peice of the external Co2 reactor, guess if u really want it call him and order from him before heading down.

After i broke my ADA Diffuser, i got myself the external reactor, connect it to my 2229 filter, it stop the action from the dry/wet area so got myself another 2026 for the reactor and it work.

So after much moitoring, the Co2 reactor seems good but i still prefer the diffuser, in smaller tanks yes the diffuser is much a better option.

If you do really want the Co2 external reactor i can say it's much better then any of the reactor tht is internal first it save space secondly the Co2 gets diffuse with the filtered water before reaching your tank.

Alan i was thinking of this idea of putting a diffuser inside the reactor. Anybody wants to try this idea cos i may try this when i'm free. imagine having a diffuser which diffuse the Co2 and the reactor diffuses the Co2 much much further before returning to the tank .

It was say reactor diffuse as much as 80% of the Co2 and with the diffuser i'm sure it's much better then an external Co2 reactor alone.

I'm sure there are more people who can give you an idea of their effectiveness =)

[akoh]

----------------
Cons:
- Pain in the *** to prime/restart the filter.
Overall, it's worth it for larger tanks.
----------------

Vinz ! [], ok for 4 footer ? Kum Sia !

Safe Diving !
akoh

[benetay]

4ft okay! No problems...just install the device in series with yr filer =)

Outlet of filter into the inlet of the reactor and outlet of the reactor to your tank.

Filter outlet===>inlet reactor====> outlet reactor===> tank

[akoh]

----------------
Got the last peice of the external Co2 reactor, guess if u really want it call him and order from him before heading down.
----------------

Look like I have to give him a call , Thks for the thinker !.
Any prob. with 2228 ? coz' I'll be hooking up the external reactor to it ? gues it'll be the sure huh ! Xie Xie !

Safe Diving !
akoh

[vinz]

4ft is fine. So is the 2228.

I find that the return current from my filter was too strong for the Taiwanese int reactors and tiny bubbles would escape. Plus the damn things have the outlet at the middle height of the tank. I always hated having to pull equipment out of the tank. Even worse now that the tank top is 5 foot high.

Ext reactor solved all this problems.

[benetay]

2228 no problem.

[eggz]

Hey Vinz, can you do this?

filter outlet-->T-split-->valve-->extCO2->tank
/
/-->tank

when you want to prime/restart, just close the valve to the ext CO2 reactor


eggz

[eggz]

arrghh, my diagram didn't quite work out...anyway y'know what I mean....

[vinz]

Fixed your diagram. Don't know if it will work.

I've primed mine twice this week, once after cleaning and once after install some new media, and I haven't figured out exactly how to do it properly yet. I'm not about to try again until I have to...

[Vican]

I got the taiwanese reactor as well. I got the longest one and the outlet is at the bottom of my 2' tall tank. Bought it at Ah Pek's for $20.

most of the gas gets dissolved. There are some extremely fine bubbles coming out also, but I'm thinking they're insoluble gases

[sherchoo]

Actually what make a good reactor good? Form what I see... it's just a tube. Not much engineering involved.

[peterkoh]

I'm curious of how this external reactor works. Anyone has a link to it or picture of it ?

Thks.

Cheers,
Peter

[PeterGwee]

It is actually a external filter for those water coolers with some modification for injecting the CO2...its that simple. []

[anakin]

I only have a small pic of Chan's ext reactor, look for it under my album

http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/kohsookeong

basically it's that glass dome shape equipment on the right front corner of my cabinet. it works on a simple principle. the CO2 is introduced into the dome and gets trapped. the water from the filter enters the dome and is forced to circulate near the top before it's pumped back to the tank. The resulting turbulence will dissolve the trapped CO2. It's effective because you'd know that when there is no more bubbles in the dome - it means that your CO2 in the dome is totally dissolved. I'll try to upload a bigger pic of it the next few days. And BTW, it works, my 3 day old tank's plants are bubbling and pearling like crazy.[] [] []

[benetay]

I've added a atomiser inside the External Co2 reactor and found out that some of the finer bubbles are release into the water colume first while the rest of the Co2 are raise to the top.

So far i have better results after installation of the atomiser,although Chan told me that after a prolong period it might choke up and burst the tubing.What i did is to loosen the atomiser so if extra pressure is built up if there is any choke areas, the atomiser will pop out instead of bursting the tubings.