I have a 110g tank and 2 leg Blue Line 55 HD 1100gph pump 1 leg I have a Nu-Clear 533 and a 547 the second leg I would like to put in a 3x24 DIY CO2 Reactor will this work or should I go with a 4x18 or 2x24 with or without BIO Balls , My line is 1 inch.
DIY CO2 Reactor Size Matter
- Thread starter inkslinger
- Start date
The way an external reactor works best is for the downward flowing water to be moving fast enough to hold a lot of the CO2 bubbles in suspension, so they don't just shoot to the top of the reactor and collect there. But, not so fast that the water flow sweeps the CO2 bubbles out the exit at the bottom of the reactor. Since the speed of the flowing water in the reactor goes down as the reactor diameter goes up, you can have too big a diameter, or too small a diameter, for the specific flow rate of water going through the reactor. I haven't seen any testing data that shows what diameter is best for what flow rate. My 2 inch diameter pipe, which is actually bigger than 2 inches in diameter, works pretty well with my Filstar XP3.
I'm not sure if the length of the pipe is critical at all. Generally I think people make them about 2 feet in total length, but shorter or longer may be just as good. Obviously a 2 inch length would be much too short, and a 4 foot length would be absurdly long, but the best length doesn't seem to have been determined.
I'm not sure if the length of the pipe is critical at all. Generally I think people make them about 2 feet in total length, but shorter or longer may be just as good. Obviously a 2 inch length would be much too short, and a 4 foot length would be absurdly long, but the best length doesn't seem to have been determined.
Will the AM 1000 is at 3inch DIA x 15inch L with a 1/2 inlet/outlet for a 250gph pump , an if I built a DIY CO2 Reactor 3 x 24 with a valve for flow control with a 1 inch inlet/outlet I should have no problem running 500 to 700gph flow rate with my setup where most of my flow should go to my filter any way what would you think?
I had only seen 1 person do a modification to a AM 1000 CO2 Reactor but I can't seem to contact him to see how it has work for him in the long run.
I had only seen 1 person do a modification to a AM 1000 CO2 Reactor but I can't seem to contact him to see how it has work for him in the long run.
inkslinger;35649 said:
Sorry, I was trying to answer the question above my post. I'm not sure what the best size would be for your application. I'll defer to Vaughn or Tom on that one as they have far more experience with the these kinds of devices.
One thing you could try is to get some threaded barbed fittings and threaded ends and various diameters. At least then you could reuse some of the fittings. Since these things are pretty cheap for material cost the threaded fittings might not be worth it. Given the way these things work, as long as you don't have bubbles coming out the end at all after a week or so of operation you're probably good to go no matter what size you chose.
The bioballs seem to have fallen out of favor and most of the stuff I've seen about these recently skips the use of them. As long as you filter the water before the reactor you should be able to include the bioballs without worrying about any bioslime building up on them. If you're running a parallel setup I'd skip them. For the most part they're just an added cost and complexity if you're just starting to work with PVC and probably not worth your time until you get a better idea of how this works. Again, given the material costs you could always build two, one with bioballs and one without. Time won't be much of a factor since you'll have everything out and in front of you anyway. I also see lots of people build several over time as they tweak their design so you may not want to build the "perfect" one just yet.
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