would this work?

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MYTY1705

Aquarium Advice Freak
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Apr 19, 2004
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I had asked earlier and got negative comments back. I just keep thinking, and can not come up with why this would not work. Please look at the diagram and let me know if my thinking in the notations is wrong.

Thanks!!!!
 

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Where is the chamber located? In the tank? Also, looks like you have the water flow going up the chamber. If that's the case, it won't do much good as CO2 rises in the water, and the flow will expel it from the chamber with little to no affect. Now if the water was going down, and you had the airstone in the middle to upper part of the chamber, the rising CO2 will fight the current, thus dissolving. you can also put another hole at the top of the chamber and have an airline going back to the powerhead venturi, to keep excess CO2 from building up in the chamber.

What I would do is your upper option to the airstone, but have the airstone at the top of the chamber. Then have the powerhead output going into the top of the chamber, so water flow goes down. Then have an air valve at the top connected to the venturi of the powerhead to remove any excess CO2 buildup and put back into the powerhead.
 
This is a modification to a seaclone 200 protein skimmer. I am giong to block the collection cup area keeping the micro-bubles in the water. I had thought the the vortex that the unit creates would keep the co2 in suspension long enough for diffusion to occur.

The co2 would be sucked in through a venrturi, water and the bubbles are forced together by the power head, creating a foam of water and co2 micro-bubbles. The water and co2 micro-bubbles then head down the tube to the bottom of the chamber. Then with the water circulation, it is forced into a vortex motion and moves up the chamber to return to the tank.

I have seen mico-bubbles in my tank right now, when I don't have the venturi adjusted properly for enough or too much air. I was thinking this would be the same with the co2 as with the regular air being sucked in.

I took the unit off my tank and placed dye in the a tub of water and then timed the length of time it took for the dye to reach the outflow. Total of about 20-30 seconds. Small traces strted showing up about 20 seconds with total saturation of the dye in about 30 seconds. Is this a long enough time for the co2 to diffuse?
 
I think your concept is sound. The amount of time to dissolve depends on many factors, so I can't give you a direct answer. During the periods when the water is NOT O2 or CO2 saturated, then 20-30 seconds would be plenty of time to completely dissolve, but what happens is latter in the day the water becomes O2 and CO2 saturated making it difficult to dissolve additional CO2 into the water, so at that point 20-30 seconds may not be enough.

Regardless of the amount going into solution, if you can set it up to have micro bubbles coming out, you now have a dissolved reactor with misting. Just make sure the outlet is directed towards the plants or the exhaust of your filter to better disperse the CO2 bubbles.

Experiments completed by Tom Barr have shown that misting increases the O2 content of the water as compared to just dissolving the CO2 into solution. ie the plants are producing more O2 with misting.
 
When "misting" the tank with CO2, people will use ONLY the powerhead to diffuse the CO2. Your extra 20 to 30 seconds will only help disolve more of the mist.

What happens at the top of the chamber? Is it exposed to the air? I'm not very familiar with protein skimmers.
 
The top is the collection chamber. It has a tube that runs up into it. I plan on cloggin it somehow to only allow the bubbles to be released into the tank insterad of traveling up the tube.

Even with the turbulence inside the chamber. I still get some bubbles comimng out of the unit. I figured I was getting the best of both worlds. The big bubbles get smashed up in the power head and swirled around in the bottom chamber allowing for diffusion. The what bubbles are left are then spit into the tank and pushed around by a power head.

I have come across another forum that has good diy co2 equipment. As soon as I build mine I will upload pictures and description for it.
 
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