DIY Co2 Reactor

[armymp327]

i made this the other night and it is by no means an original design, i found a drawing of something similar from another website, anyways i was wondering if anyone has any insight on these and whether this looks correct or any improvements that can be made.

also i know its ugly, will be put in the back and covered with plants once im satisfied its working correctly

 

[MMantelli]

unless u need the added bb you dont need all that. go to walgreens or whatever pharmacy ask for a 5ml doser the pharmasist at walgreens gave me 3 for free cut the top off stick a check valve in it ant put the nipple end right up to the cage on the inlet side of your powerhead i did that for my diy co2 on my 55 and it does better than my buddies 55 dollar diffuser ill post a link to a video of my setup for you later today

 

[armymp327]

well all the plastic stars are not for BB, its there to break up the bubbles into smaller bubbles, and the sponge at the bottom is there to break up the bubbles even more before they exit out the bottom. I've had an atomic atomizer that essentially created a Co2 mist in my tank, however i still had bubbles reaching the surface, and bubbles getting to the surface equals wasted Co2.

This is a reactor and im wanting to know if there is i way i can improve on this design, im not looking for diffusion methods.

thank you though. and i think ive seen others use hypodermic needles to diffuse Co2, quite interesting really.

 

[MMantelli]

Oh gotcha the way I got mine set up it chops up the bubbles so fine you can barley even see them. Here's a pic of what I did ignore the cloudy water I just got done doing a water change. And I shook up the bottle so it would blas co2 for the pic.











The medicine doser acts as a bubble counter and the little bug juice bottle is a sort of a reactor ish contraption

 

[MMantelli]

I origionally had mine set up similar to yours but found I didn't need all that crap in my tank.lol.

 

[armymp327]

well that does seem to be working quite well, if i dont like how this reactor works i just might try that. thanks!

 

[MMantelli]

No problem glad I could show you options

 

[aqua_chem]

I've heard that type of reactor called a "Barr internal reactor" before, or something along those line. It's essentially a Rex Grigg reactor in the tank rather than inline. The bioballs are probably unnecessary but some people like to use them, and they're probably not hurting anything. You can remove them fairly easily if you wanted to mess around with it.

That should get you better diffusion than running directly into a powerhead. It should be near 100% when running optimally.

 

[MMantelli]

I've heard that type of reactor called a "Barr internal reactor" before, or something along those line. It's essentially a Rex Grigg reactor in the tank rather than inline. The bioballs are probably unnecessary but some people like to use them, and they're probably not hurting anything. You can remove them fairly easily if you wanted to mess around with it.

That should get you better diffusion than running directly into a powerhead. It should be near 100% when running optimally.

So your saying the mist my powerhead blasts throughout the tank is not getting 100% diffusion?

 

[aqua_chem]

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the tank, powerhead, and especially how much CO2 you're injecting. It's better for low volumes.

 

[MMantelli]

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the tank, powerhead, and especially how much CO2 you're injecting. It's better for low volumes.

It's a 55g I use a mixture of 6c sugar 6c water and 1 1/2tsp active dry yeast in a gallin grape juice container with the maxi-jet 900 powerhead(I wish the impeller wasn't so loud with it set up as a wavemaker I'd rather flow 900gph then pump almost 300gph but its so loud I felt ban for the fish so I just use the quieter powerhead setup.

 

[MMantelli]

Oh and that pic of the mist I shook the bottle so you could actually see something it was pumping about 15-20bps for about 10 seconds poor fish prob suffocated for a few seconds whoops but I usually keep it at 1bps for the first 3 weeks and then 2bps for 2 weeks and 3bps for a week before I change it. And if its really cold inside like it was last week ill stick a hothands toe warmer to the side of it to keep the yeast at the proper temp to do its thing.

 

[armymp327]

I've heard that type of reactor called a "Barr internal reactor" before, or something along those line. It's essentially a Rex Grigg reactor in the tank rather than inline. The bioballs are probably unnecessary but some people like to use them, and they're probably not hurting anything. You can remove them fairly easily if you wanted to mess around with it.

That should get you better diffusion than running directly into a powerhead. It should be near 100% when running optimally.

well im glad someone else has heard of it yeah i was not sure about the bio balls, just saw them being used in a aquamed reactor (with $115 price tag lol) and its seemed like a good idea, i had some laying around anyways. and id say im getting close to 95% diffusion with a few very small bubbles reaching the surface a second. maybe ill try to lower the GPH on my powerhead so the bubbles will stay in the tube a bit longer.

i was porting my Co2 directly into a powerhead with a regular air stone, and i was losing 70% of my co2 and could not get my ph down past 7.5 (PH controller set to 7.2) and that was with 6 BPS!

anyways i think ill keep it and cover it up with the driftwood in my tank when i rescape everything tomorrow and add more driftwood

 

[phin]

To improve on your design, I would suggest moving the stone, where the CO2 enters the reactor chamber to the top, in the blue bell. This way, all the CO2 that enters your reactor has to pass over all the biostars before it is carried into the tank, allowing for greater diffusion. Also, I don't know that your stone is completely necessary - but it looks like its working with the stone in there, so just move it up above all the stars.

 

[aqua_chem]

The bubbles wont go down until they're so small that they're not buoyant enough to overcome the downward current from the powerhead. Because of this, it doesn't really matter so much where they're injected. I do agree that the stone is probably not necessary.

 

[MMantelli]

To improve on your design, I would suggest moving the stone, where the CO2 enters the reactor chamber to the top, in the blue bell. This way, all the CO2 that enters your reactor has to pass over all the biostars before it is carried into the tank, allowing for greater diffusion. Also, I don't know that your stone is completely necessary - but it looks like its working with the stone in there, so just move it up above all the stars.

wouldnt having the stone at the top defeat the purpose of his reactor? i dont know much about that type of setup so im learning something new here
and the co2 bubbles should sink??? huih

 

[MMantelli]

To improve on your design, I would suggest moving the stone, where the CO2 enters the reactor chamber to the top, in the blue bell. This way, all the CO2 that enters your reactor has to pass over all the biostars before it is carried into the tank, allowing for greater diffusion. Also, I don't know that your stone is completely necessary - but it looks like its working with the stone in there, so just move it up above all the stars.

wouldnt having the stone at the top defeat the purpose of his reactor? i dont know much about that type of setup so im learning something new here
and the co2 bubbles should sink??? huh

 

[phin]

wouldnt having the stone at the top defeat the purpose of his reactor? i dont know much about that type of setup so im learning something new here
and the co2 bubbles should sink??? huh

You are right. I looked at the configuration again and the water flows from the bottom of the tube, out the top. The powerhead is pulling the water through the reactor. Initially, I saw it as the powerhead pushing the water through from the top to the bottom.

If you have water flowing from top to bottom, and the bubbles injected at the top of the reactor so water flow and CO2 are working against each other, CO2 will stay in the reactor longer, leading to greater diffusion.

 

[aqua_chem]

You are right. I looked at the configuration again and the water flows from the bottom of the tube, out the top. The powerhead is pulling the water through the reactor. Initially, I saw it as the powerhead pushing the water through from the top to the bottom.
.

If it's set up like you described, then it's set up wrong.

 

[armymp327]

I have it set up with the power head pushing water into the reactor, with this set up the bubbles from the air stone rise to the top and are pushed back down then up again until they are small enough to be pushed out the bottom of the tube through the sponge