CO2 Reactor not working out,.. need help on coming up with a new plan.

[Whiskey]

Hello all!

I have a 25G tank, with an inline CO2 reactor - and I want my dropchecker to be about lime green. The DIY CO2 reactor was working great, but it's powered by a Fluval 204 and I think I'm just not pushing enough water through it, because it ends up filling half way with CO2 - though it keeps up in that state, it does so barely, this is far from being ideal.

So I decided to try the needle-wheel power-head trick, and just eliminate this thing altogether, but I think I'm missing a key concept, because all I ended up doing was filling my tank with micro-bubbles - though it did keep up with demand wonderfully.

I cut the impeller like so:

Fead the CO2 at a rate of about 2 bubbles per second into the center of the impeller (the intake), placed it in the tank and let it rip! No luck.

Do you guys have these feeding into a second reactor or something to prevent this? Did I do something wrong?

Thanks for your help!
Whiskey

 

[scottward]

because it ends up filling half way with CO2

You should check out the venturi mod, where you feed this built up gas back into the intake (the intake of your Fluval in your case).

 

[shoggoth43]

Sounds about right. I would probably mod the impeller slightly to make sure all the fins go in the same direction at the same height. i.e. the "top" half bend clockwise and the "bottom" half bend counter clockwise. This will smash the bubbles a little more.

You WILL have microbubbles with the needle wheel. This is the CO2 "mist" that people speak of. Some like it, some hate it. Aim the powerhead where you think you need more flow or CO2. Most people don't have nearly enough flow, so this is a pretty good option to get CO2 where you need it. You may find that you don't require as much CO2 with this method which may cut down on the amount of bubbles everywhere.

If you don't like the bubbles, you can direct the outlet into a large tube like a gravel cleaner tube and place a porous sponge in the end to help trap some of the bubbles.

-
S

 

[Whiskey]

You should check out the venturi mod, where you feed this built up gas back into the intake (the intake of your Fluval in your case).

That's not a bad idea - though I can't in my case because my PH probe is inline with my Fluval intake.

Whiskey

 

[Whiskey]

Sounds about right. I would probably mod the impeller slightly to make sure all the fins go in the same direction at the same height. i.e. the "top" half bend clockwise and the "bottom" half bend counter clockwise. This will smash the bubbles a little more.

You WILL have microbubbles with the needle wheel. This is the CO2 "mist" that people speak of. Some like it, some hate it. Aim the powerhead where you think you need more flow or CO2. Most people don't have nearly enough flow, so this is a pretty good option to get CO2 where you need it. You may find that you don't require as much CO2 with this method which may cut down on the amount of bubbles everywhere.

If you don't like the bubbles, you can direct the outlet into a large tube like a gravel cleaner tube and place a porous sponge in the end to help trap some of the bubbles.

-
S

Yeah! I had one of these,.. back in 2003 or there about's,.. when I was kinda getting into doing a little larger high tech tanks. It was one of the best co2 reactors I ever had, I even made a smaller version of it when I first started this tank, but the small one was just too small to contain the bubbles, and the big one was such an eyesore.

There is a comprimize though - I could take my current CO2 reactor off my fluval loop, and add it's own pump right ontop - feed the CO2 into the pump for chopping it up, make the pump about 300GPH to run water through it at about double the pace, that will most definitally keep up. I was hoping not to go through all the trouble though - and at the same time I'm hoping to come up with an idea that will work on my 120 that I'll eventually upgrade to, and I'm not sure that plan would work when the tank get's that big.

What do you think?
Whiskey