Injected CO2 help

[Reefer James]

The gas will be stuck in the canister never being diffused.

I have page 51 referenced on my bookmark http://www.uib.no/sites/w3.uib.no/files/attachments/att01236.pdf - It's not aquarium related but talks about how co2 bubbles move through areas

 

[Brookster123]

Did you upgrade the lights as well?
What is the height of the tank?
What is the lighting configuration on the tank?
What kind of coral is it?



PH is a little low, should shoot for 8.3-8.4
What is the ALK? (number please either in meq/L, DKH, or ppm)
What is the CA reading?
What is calcium FORM?
What are the phosphate readings?

I diffuse into a cannister intake and it ends up in my tank?? Everyday, consistently.. i have a reactor as well.. can't say there isn't air in it but the tank gets co2 everyday, consistently..

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[fish wrangler]

Anyway, with many canisters, if the a gas bubble makes its way to the impeller, it's just going to proceed to escape through the output anyway.

And this is what happens with my fluval 306 when I shut off the flow to feed my fish. When its turned back on a big bubble comes out.

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[coralbandit]

I diffuse into a cannister intake and it ends up in my tank?? Everyday, consistently.. i have a reactor as well.. can't say there isn't air in it but the tank gets co2 everyday, consistently..

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^This is you (YOU ALL) should listen too!^
Pictures are worth a thousand words.
Everyone say thank you Brookster!
Thank you Brookster!

 

[Mebbid]

The gas will be stuck in the canister never being diffused.

I have page 51 referenced on my bookmark http://www.uib.no/sites/w3.uib.no/files/attachments/att01236.pdf - It's not aquarium related but talks about how co2 bubbles move through areas

I'm not seeing how this link correlates to how co2 moves through sponges. That is specifically diffusing CO2 through Berea Sandstone which is going to act a bit differently than sponges will. I imagine if you were running it through something like this

it would be a different story.

Although, I will agree that canisters can be ineffective for injecting co2, but it all depends on the design of a filter. When I was injecting co2 into my sunsun canister there was regularly a build up of co2 that would just get spit out en masse when it reached a certain point, however a canister such as my eheim ecco wouldn't suffer from this issue due to a difference in design.

 

[PerfectDepth]

If co2 bubbles get stuck in the sponges, then that's a good thing. Ideally, you'd want the bubbles to stay submerged until they get fully dissolved by the water moving through the filter.


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[PerfectDepth]

Although, I will agree that canisters can be ineffective for injecting co2, but it all depends on the design of a filter. When I was injecting co2 into my sunsun canister there was regularly a build up of co2 that would just get spit out en masse when it reached a certain point, however a canister such as my eheim ecco wouldn't suffer from this issue due to a difference in design.

Co2 will eventually build up inside any canister or inline reactor once the co2 concentration is high enough. The reason it builds up is because as the co2 concentration in the water increases, the dissolving rate slows down. The more efficient a reactor is at dissolving co2, the higher the concentration at which it will start to "burp".

Anyway, I'm curious.. Do you know the approx. co2 concentration you were reaching using the sun sun? Was the issue that you couldn't get the concentration high enough, or just that you didn't want to waste co2? Just wondering if maybe it could have been used to your advantage.. as a safeguard to regulate co2 concentration, and keep it from getting too high and killing fish.



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[Mebbid]

Co2 will eventually build up inside any canister or inline reactor once the co2 concentration is high enough. The reason it builds up is because as the co2 concentration in the water increases, the dissolving rate slows down. The more efficient a reactor is at dissolving co2, the higher the concentration at which it will start to "burp".

Anyway, I'm curious.. Do you know the approx. co2 concentration you were reaching using the sun sun? Was the issue that you couldn't get the concentration high enough, or just that you didn't want to waste co2? Just wondering if maybe it could have been used to your advantage.. as a safeguard to regulate co2 concentration, and keep it from getting too high and killing fish.

It's not that it was spitting out some co2. But it would reach a point where it would spit out very very large amounts of co2. It would spray very large bubbles out of all 14" of my spray bar. Hazarding a guess I would say it would be somewhere around half a cup of co2 every time it happened at least. This would happen 2 - 3 times every photo period. Consequently, my co2 had to be turned up a lot to compensate for the waste and put enough co2 into the water. I've since started diffusing it into my Aquaclear filter which works amazingly well.

I was at maybe 20ppm of co2.

 

[Brookster123]

It's not that it was spitting out some co2. But it would reach a point where it would spit out very very large amounts of co2. It would spray very large bubbles out of all 14" of my spray bar. Hazarding a guess I would say it would be somewhere around half a cup of co2 every time it happened at least. This would happen 2 - 3 times every photo period. Consequently, my co2 had to be turned up a lot to compensate for the waste and put enough co2 into the water. I've since started diffusing it into my Aquaclear filter which works amazingly well.

I was at maybe 20ppm of co2.

This happened with my smaller cannister, 1 bps piped directly into intake. Exactly as you describe yet plants still seemed to get their fair share.. only 7.5 gal though.. the 20t has a sunsun, the ceramic diffuser must make the difference as the co2 never "burps" from the spray bar.

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[Reefer James]

^This is you (YOU ALL) should listen too!^
Pictures are worth a thousand words.
Everyone say thank you Brookster!
Thank you Brookster!

He said he can't say for sure if there's air or not? Where's the high praise at?

I never said co2 would not reach the display. Nor did I say it couldn't be diffused through a canister. I said co2 gas will inevitably collect at SOME point. That's just what happens when you inject a gas, there's going to be a air pocket somewhere no matter how you do it. The higher the water flow the less pocket. The less co2, the less total air.

Overall if you have the system capable of injecting carbon dioxide, I say finish your touch down sprint and get the optimal system of diffusion... A canister, for more ways than one, is not the best at this... Frankly, a $3 ceramic diffuser at bottom of tank is more effective than gassing a canister.

 

[Brookster123]

Wouldn't bet more than a dollar on air. Just can't disprove it is all.

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[beeritself]

So.... Is everyone on the same page that a good ceramic diffuser (ie - gla atomic diffuser) and a bubble counter is a better way to inject my aquarium than running it through my Fluval 406?

 

[coralbandit]

Where's the high praise at?

The HIGH PRAISE is from seeing NUMEROUS photos of planted tanks that Brookster runs!
A picture is worth a thousand words,so you can keep talking....
He is still the one I will listen to for good advice!

 

[Brookster123]

So.... Is everyone on the same page that a good ceramic diffuser (ie - gla atomic diffuser) and a bubble counter is a better way to inject my aquarium than running it through my Fluval 406?

I'd go inline reactor over ceramic diffuser..

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[Fresh2o]

My $0.02. I've used a cheap glass/ceramic and Fluval ceramic diffuser. When CLEAN, I get i nice mist out of either one. The latter one may be less visually appealing but it is in the back of my tank near the bottom and cannot be seen. The mist is picked up and distributed by an AC50 HOB filter (in a 20L).
As for injecting it into a canister, the CO2 will eventually dissolve in the water. Trapped air, on the other hand, may persist in the canister resulting in noise. I'm a little biased because the most recent canister I used was a Fluval 206; leaking and noise caused me to go back to using the HOB filter.


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[PerfectDepth]

It's not that it was spitting out some co2. But it would reach a point where it would spit out very very large amounts of co2. It would spray very large bubbles out of all 14" of my spray bar. Hazarding a guess I would say it would be somewhere around half a cup of co2 every time it happened at least. This would happen 2 - 3 times every photo period. Consequently, my co2 had to be turned up a lot to compensate for the waste and put enough co2 into the water. I've since started diffusing it into my Aquaclear filter which works amazingly well.

I was at maybe 20ppm of co2.

Haha, yeah that would be annoying. I would imagine what was happening was that a co2 pocket was collecting in the top of the "tube" (i.e. the holes in the media baskets), and once the pocket was large enough, the flowing water would start to cause small bubbles to break off and "hover" in the downward flow. As the hovering bubbles join together, eventually a large enough bubble is formed and then pushed out the bottom of the tube and then up through the canister to the output.

Yeah, the design of the aquaclear HOBs actually makes them perfect for injecting co2. The media chamber should slow down any stray bubbles that might otherwise escape to the surface before being dissolved.

 

[Brookster123]

Haha, yeah that would be annoying. I would imagine what was happening was that a co2 pocket was collecting in the top of the "tube" (i.e. the holes in the media baskets), and once the pocket was large enough, the flowing water would start to cause small bubbles to break off and "hover" in the downward flow. As the hovering bubbles join together, eventually a large enough bubble is formed and then pushed out the bottom of the tube and then up through the canister to the output.

Yeah, the design of the aquaclear HOBs actually makes them perfect for injecting co2. The media chamber should slow down any stray bubbles that might otherwise escape to the surface before being dissolved.

When I just put bubbles into the cannister it would burp a mess if bubbles every minute or so.. not ideal. The ac with bubbles would work well. The fine mist from the diffuser seems to be key in using a cannister without a reactor.

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[PerfectDepth]

I'd go inline reactor over ceramic diffuser..

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+1 Not a huge fan of ceramic diffusers myself. In many cases I think they are unnecessary, and just a pain to deal with compared to a reactor. For one I don't like the "soda water" look, plus you have to make sure the disc stays clean and produces a fine enough mist.

That said, when I was running a high-light setup, I ended up running both an inline reactor AND a ceramic diffuser. I didn't care for all the micro-bubbles floating around the tank, but those micro-bubbles did seem to have a noticeable effect on plant growth and algae prevention, even though I was already pushing 45-50 ppm with the inline reactor alone. I experimented with removing the diffuser and just setting the ph controller slightly lower to get a 1.3 degree drop instead of 1.2, but that didn't produce the same results as the addition of the ceramic diffuser below a powerhead, and keeping it set at a 1.2 degree drop. For some reason (not exactly sure why), it was the only way to meet the co2 demand with high-light.

 

[PerfectDepth]

The fine mist from the diffuser seems to be key in using a cannister without a reactor.

Makes sense.. smaller bubbles = more surface area = quicker overall dissolving rate = slower build up of undissolved co2.

Inversely, I would say that combining with filtration is the key to using ceramic discs. It helps avoid the "soda water" look, plus trying to get a super-fine mist is not nearly as crucial when something is sucking up the bubbles and helping to completely dissolve them. I would think that even just a piece of chopstick or a wad of cotton stuffed into the end of the line would be sufficient.

 

[Brookster123]

Makes sense.. smaller bubbles = more surface area = quicker overall dissolving rate = slower build up of undissolved co2.

Conversely, I would say that combining with filtration is the key to using ceramic discs. It helps avoid the "soda water" look, plus trying to get a super-fine mist is not nearly as crucial when something is sucking up the bubbles and helping to completely dissolve them. I would think that even just a piece of chopstick or a wad of cotton stuffed into the end of the line would be sufficient.

furthermore it creates the build up of mulm and other clogging crap on the disc. Havnt had to clean it since I set it up a year ago. It's zip tied to.the bottom of the intake..

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