Understanding what is in the CO2 reactor...

Hope Everyone Had A Great Arizona Day Yesterday

Hi,

I disagree with conclusions 1a and 1b, Conclusion 2 could be true but I am not sure I understand the relevance.

{Full disclosure: I do not use or own the AM1000 reactor.}

It seems to me you are simply running too much CO2 into the reactor during the course of the day.

Assuming you are using CO2 of reasonable quality-

• There is simply more CO2 than can enter solution.
• Recirculating un-dissolved CO2 back is one of the better ways of preventing waste, somewhere after not using more gas than can enter solution.

CO2 gas can and does dissolve readily in water.

Biollante

 

I think you should check this thread on AM1000 functioning

http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/6922-AM1000-reactor-plumbing-question-for-the-quot-false-gas-valve-quot

Pepetj
Santo Domingo

 

Or you could have a leak allowing room air to be sucked in. If that were the case you'd get a buildup of mostly Nitrogen which doesn't disolve well.

Pat

 

Needless to say, although I'll say it anway, this is a very bad situtation to be in. Even if the AM1000 isn't completely full of gas as in your case, just a few inches could be too much, you'll run into trouble if you have a powercut. If you have a powercut, there is a good chance this gas will find it's way up into the impellor chamber of your pump. When the power comes back on, you will have a pump that is running dry (as far as I'm aware most pumps don't self prime). A dry run pump is not good. I know from experience as this happened to me, but fortunately I was home at the time and could here the pump chugging away with very little water. I was able to switch it off before it overheated and seized up.

Using the dual venturi method, as Tom mentioned earlier, works great as long as you stay within reasonable limits. If you overwhelm the pump with CO2, the dual venturi loop still won't be enough to purge the gas, and you'll end up with an air space at the top (which again could cause a dry run pump).

Personally I purge any build up gas from the AM1000 to a completely seperate needle wheel pump connected to a spray bar. That way I'm not wasting the CO2 and never have any risk of dry running my pump though CO2 build up.

Just a quick thought regarding the CO2 dissolving in 20 seconds - I'm struggling to see how this is possible given that the water in the tank, at the time you performed the test, would have already contained a reasonable amount of CO2? Even if the water had very little CO2, it suprises me that an entrire AM1000 full of pure CO2 would dissolve that quickly?? Are you sure you had the air bleed valve closed properly?

Scott.

Edit: I just realised that you are using a powerhead, not an external pump. So I guess any dry run issues won't affect you. Nevertheless, anybody reading this who is using an external pump to power the AM1000, as is more often the case, take note!

 

BTW Tom (and gurus), I understand that it is 'harder' for CO2 to dissolve as the CO2 concentration of the solute (i.e. the aquarium water) rises, but how much 'harder' does it actually get within the range 0 - 30 that we work with? Perhaps this (small?) range doesn't make a great deal of difference?

So lets say a reactor that is completely full of CO2 (and let's say we put it there ourselves so we know for certain that it is CO2) suddenly has the water pump turned on and within 20 seconds the reactor is full of water again as the CO2 dissolves (bypass line closed so that the CO2 actually does have to dissolve in the reactor and cannot be flushed out). Let's say that it does this with aquarium water that has a low CO2 concentration, perhaps averaging 3-4ppm.

If we conduct the exact same experient with water that is charged to 30ppm, would we notice a difference? Would the CO2 noticeably take longer to dissolve inside the reactor or would we only notice this if the water were some 100ppm+ in concentration?

Perhaps the 0-30ppm band is so narrow that changes in CO2 solubility don't have any impact for our hobby?

Scott.

 

Scott, I'm working on a different approach that may answer that question. I'm in the process of building a prototype of a reactor that forces as much CO2 into solution as possible with a Maxijet 1200 running in a ~ 6L closed loop. I'll be feeding CO2 at std. pressure in incriments of ~150ml via a float switch attached to the CO2 solenoid. The resultant mixture will be metered into the tank using a Dwyer rotometrer. I'm hoping to get 100ppm concentrations or better so we'll see.

DIY Thread on APE
Pat