DIY internal Reactor, great for Yeast CO2 users!

VaughnH

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Jan 24, 2005
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I made one with a Maxijet 600 and it worked fine. See post #2. I don't think it would be good to use anything much bigger than that though.
 

Henry Hatch

Guru Class Expert
Aug 31, 2006
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In my never ending quest for co2 nirvana I plan to build this reactor. It will be in a 30 gallon with diy co2. I've looked at the description and photos and I'm not clear how the misting effect happens. The output of the pump goes into the reactor chamber and it appears that mist is created in the chamber via the venturi loop which continuously recycles the co2 bubbles into the power head.

How does the mist get into the tank ? Does it just build up and come out the bottom of the reactor ?


Henry
 

VaughnH

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The really fine bubbles are swept out the bottom of the tube into the tank. If you add even more CO2, ever bigger fine bubbles go out the bottom. At least that is how mine worked.
 

Liakern

Junior Poster
Apr 26, 2009
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I actually made a co2 "diffuser" that goes under the gravel. one silicone hose supplying the co2 to the diffuser and one hose goin from the diffuser to filter inlet. The hose goin to the filter inlet is ONLY drawing water to ensure that there is no stagnent water and to help circulate co2 rich water.

My favorite aspect of making it this way is no addition electrical outlets needed and co2 levels are constant. Any access co2 is just overflown and escapes to the surface


Its about 12"x4"x2" and lays flat on the bottom of the tank. cover with substrate and its gone.. no eyesore... It could easly be built to 1" thickness rather than 2" but this is my first attempt at making a good deffuser and refinement is in order but the prototype is deffinatly effective. more importanly consistant.
 

VaughnH

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Liakern;36198 said:
I actually made a co2 "diffuser" that goes under the gravel. one silicone hose supplying the co2 to the diffuser and one hose goin from the diffuser to filter inlet. The hose goin to the filter inlet is ONLY drawing water to ensure that there is no stagnent water and to help circulate co2 rich water.

My favorite aspect of making it this way is no addition electrical outlets needed and co2 levels are constant. Any access co2 is just overflown and escapes to the surface


Its about 12"x4"x2" and lays flat on the bottom of the tank. cover with substrate and its gone.. no eyesore... It could easly be built to 1" thickness rather than 2" but this is my first attempt at making a good deffuser and refinement is in order but the prototype is deffinatly effective. more importanly consistant.

This sounds very promising! Please post a photo of the diffuser, and or sketches to show how it works.
 

Liakern

Junior Poster
Apr 26, 2009
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According to my drop-checker it works just fine on my 29gal but It has not had time enough to trully prove it self in an established and successful planted tank.


untitled.gif


Thoughts? opinions?
 

VaughnH

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What is the diffuser made of? It looks like you are putting a CO2 "bell" under the substrate to hide it, but it works just like the "bell" type diffusers that used to be used in the tank. That means you rely on the surface between the CO2 bubble and the water to transfer CO2 into solution with the water. Is that right? Don't you have to worry about the buoyancy of the CO2 bubble lifting the whole thing out of the substrate?
 

Liakern

Junior Poster
Apr 26, 2009
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theres not a lot of co2 trapped. its just spread out thin.

The angle I put on the diagram was exxagerated to cleary show the way the adjustment works.

bouyance is not a severe issue and was easly remedied with a small flat rock placed on the bottom inside. thin strips goin across the bottom eleminate the threat of stagnent water beneath the bottm of the deffuser.
 

anshuman

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Dec 13, 2009
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This is almost 2010 now. Can someone please please post a youtube video of this? i am still not getting my head around how to make this (actually i just saw DIY projects on google and plantedtank.net and youtube for past 3 hours before seeing this, so my eyes are totally confused ).
 

pat w

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Nov 4, 2009
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Daphne, AL (east Mobile Bay)
I'm thinking of using a tennis ball container as the body of my reactor. $1.97 at wally world.
0002638801001_500X500.jpg

The label is a shrink wrap affair and easily removed leaving a completely clear tube. The only down side is the rim and seal. The container has a pop top metal (I think aluminum) seal attached to the plastic body with a metal (could be a different metal) rim. I could cut off the rim and there wouldn't be a problem but, I want to keep the rim so I can use the cap. I'm going to cut holes in the cap and use it to hold filter pad material, possibly bio balls, whatever.

Will the metal (I'm mostly concerned with the rim material) possibly be harmful to fish or plants?


Thanks,
Pat
 

anteleon

Junior Poster
Aug 25, 2010
8
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1
Australia
Hi all,

my first post here, thanks for this excellent site.

Just have a question to the people using this design reactor. I was bubbling about 1 bubble per second from the pressurised CO2 cannister, but found wiht this design i was not getting enough diffusion to turn my CO2 drop checker green, it was bluey green colour. I couldn't figure out what i had done wrong, i experimented with different venturi intake heights, to different pump outlet height in the reactor all to no avail. The only thing i could do to get the reactor producing enough fine bubbles was to increase the bubble rate to around 2 - 3 bubbles per second. I read on here that tom got his external venturi reactor working with only 0.5 bubbles per second, and was wondering if i did everything right with this build using this design. Have i done something wrong, or is the mist correct for 2 - 3 bubbles per second? Iam using a aquaclear 20 power head poump set to maximum output.

thanks everyone,

anteleon.
 

anteleon

Junior Poster
Aug 25, 2010
8
0
1
Australia
hi everyone,

just a quick update on my reactor,

got the CO2 checker to turn yellow last night, which i hope means theres above 30ppm of CO2 in the aquarium. I will include in the next post how i built the reactor using parts you can get here in Australia, and a few modifacations i made to tune the reactor to max performance.

thanks,

anteleon.
 

Dans89

Junior Poster
Apr 21, 2013
1
0
1
A few questions. I'll be making this using a Petco brand powerhead, is the 90* elbow inside the viewtainer a must? And the unit is mounted with the viewtainer pointed down, right?