Anyone feed OUTPUT of needlewheel to INPUT of reactor?

[growitnow]

Hi,

I just switched from AM1000 reactor on my 90gal tank, to an external needle wheel pump. The pump is an Eheim 1262 (900gph) but with a needle wheel impeller. Since I didn't know what to expect, I lowered bubble rate before the switch, and have been slowly increasing bubble rate with the NW now installed.

I have been upping and upping the CO2 with little change in drop checker (only blue-green by end of day), and have seen others make similar comment after switching from reactor to a needle wheel (need more CO2 with needle wheel to get same change in drop checker).

So, I am wondering if there is any advantage (or disadvantage?) to re-installing the AM1000 reactor and feeding the output of the Needle Wheel pump, to the input of the reactor. I assume this would increase contact time but have no sense of whether there's value in doing that.

thanks for any insight,
growitnow

 

[chopsticks]

As I understand, the CO2 from a needle wheel is not dissolved in the water but atomized so a drop checker is more unreliable with this method, it seems that plants do better with this method, though. You need to observe how plants react.

I dont know if there may be advantages or disadvantages, but I think that if you add again the reactor after the needle wheel, the needle wheel will be useless, but this is just speculation on my part.

Regards,

Juan