Brown Reactor

[Glenc]

You guys ever seen this before? The inside of my powered reactor is thick with brown algea. Looks like diatoms. It's so thick you can barely see inside the reactor. This stuff is starting to show up inside the tank as well on my plants. There is also a white mucus like substance on the end of the CO2 output tube inside the reactor. You can see it as the white blob in the pic This appeared first, then a couple of days later the brown stuff started. Getting thicker by the day. The tank has been set up for a couple of months, brown diatoms came and went as the tank cycled. CO2 levels are good in the tank. Not sure if this brown crap is normal because this is the longest I've run a powered reactor, been about 3 weeks. Thinking I'm growing brown algea and firing it all over my tank through the powered reactor. Maybe some of my CO2 brew is working it's way into the reactor? Ok, I'll stop talking to myself now. You can see in the pic whats left of my Rotala Mac is trying to come back The Ammania Senegalinsis behind is about the same, at least not any worse. Thanks all.

 

[Purrbox]

The white stuff is some of the yeast (or one of it's byproducts - I don't remember for sure) making its way into your tank and finding a nice source of food. I'd definately take the reactor out and give it a good cleaning. A gas separate would be a good idea to add to your system to help prevent that white stuff from making its way into your tank and possibly your tank. Can't be sure if the algae in the reactor is related to that problem or not.

 

[Glenc]

Thanks Purrbox. I'm going to take the reactor out and give it a good cleaning as it's really bad this morning. I have had fairly cloudy water for a few weeks now, right around the time I added this reactor. I'm using two 2 litre coke bottles as my generator, they are in a heated bucket of water. I'll try the gas separator and see what happens. Hope it works, if not, the reactor is coming out. Have to figure out another way to get good CO2 levels consistantly, pressurized isn't in the budget right now. I might try running two hagen ladders I have kicking around, or an inline reactor. That would mean getting a new type of filter, as I am running an HOB. More money! Thanks again, Hope your easter is going well. My kids are pumped on chocolate, the house is nuts!

 

[Purrbox]

Actually you wouldn't need to get a new filter to be able to use a inline reactor. You could simply pick up a water pump to feed water through the inline reator. That would save you a little bit of money.

Something else that you could try, would be switching to Champagne Yeast. Unlike Baker's Yeast, Champagne yeast tends to settle to the bottom of the bottle. This means that there's less chance of the yeast and such making it's way into your tank.

 

[czcz]

Agree with adding a separator bottle, fwiw. The small Canada Dry bottles are perfect for cute ones.

Happy Easter!