After finding my aquamedic 500 reactor to be pretty rubbish and not wanting to shell out for an expensive inline CO2 reactor I decided to have a go at making my own.
1) Bought an interpet gravel cleaner, approx 16 inches in length with a 10mm inlet pipe
Eheim aquaball powerhead, max flow 650l/h
Pieces of course filter foam
2) I cut the course filter foam into small cubes and placed these into the gravel cleaner,
Attached powerhead to the gravel cleaner. The eheim aquaball comes with an attachment for the pump outlet that allowes you to pump air (or CO2 in my case) into the out-flow of the power head.
Now the system works fine for around half an hour, small bubbles are pumped into the reactor get churned up and dissolve into the water, the problem is that not all of these always dissolve fully, resulting in bubbles of CO2 collecting in the reactor. After a while this becomes a large bubble of undissolved CO2 gas within the reactor that sits there. Eventually this gas collects to the point of filling the whole reactor with CO2 gas and forcing the water out, thereby rendering my reactor useless
I'm guessing the problem is that either the flow rate through the reactor is not high enough and the bubbles from the CO2 cylinder aren't churned around enough to dissolve amongst the foam (it's a long tube and none of the bubbles reach the bottom) or the CO2 is being forced out of solution because of too higher flow rate. So, will it be a matter of simply turning the powerhead down? buying a new more powerful powerhead or scrapping the whole thing altogether and investing in an inline....
THanks in advance for your help
Hank
1) Bought an interpet gravel cleaner, approx 16 inches in length with a 10mm inlet pipe
Eheim aquaball powerhead, max flow 650l/h
Pieces of course filter foam
2) I cut the course filter foam into small cubes and placed these into the gravel cleaner,
Attached powerhead to the gravel cleaner. The eheim aquaball comes with an attachment for the pump outlet that allowes you to pump air (or CO2 in my case) into the out-flow of the power head.
Now the system works fine for around half an hour, small bubbles are pumped into the reactor get churned up and dissolve into the water, the problem is that not all of these always dissolve fully, resulting in bubbles of CO2 collecting in the reactor. After a while this becomes a large bubble of undissolved CO2 gas within the reactor that sits there. Eventually this gas collects to the point of filling the whole reactor with CO2 gas and forcing the water out, thereby rendering my reactor useless
I'm guessing the problem is that either the flow rate through the reactor is not high enough and the bubbles from the CO2 cylinder aren't churned around enough to dissolve amongst the foam (it's a long tube and none of the bubbles reach the bottom) or the CO2 is being forced out of solution because of too higher flow rate. So, will it be a matter of simply turning the powerhead down? buying a new more powerful powerhead or scrapping the whole thing altogether and investing in an inline....
THanks in advance for your help
Hank
