Juwel CO2 Reactor

[OIJ]

Has anyone ever heard anything about the Juwel CO2 reactor? Is it any good compared to the Nutrafin unit and a pressurised system?

Also, as many, I have been looking and following the process of the EI method. Could I achive the same results with the Seachem line of products? I currently have everything from Seachem and I am looking to apply it to my 63 gallon tank, that has a Flourite gravel mixture. I started using Flourish and Flourish Excel and I have this nasty hair algae, recently I bought Iron, Trace, Phosphorus, Nitrogen and Pottasium. Any advise on dosing?

 

[zig]

Hiya OIJ

I never heard of a Juwel co2 reactor so i dont know, but they are easy enough to make by yourself if you like diy, there are lots of plans on the web for diy co2 reactors, the ladders are very effective as well if you use pressurised i know a lot of people use them, but a reactor will probably dissolve more co2 for you but for convienience id probably use a ladder myself.

As for the second part of your question, absolutly, once you are doseing to the required levels for EI there is no reason you cannot follow the same method, although you probably know that it will cost probably 20x to do it this way, but yes exactly the same results can be achieved the only difference is that you are doseing commercial liquid fertilisers.

I also see you replied to the thread about the calculator, well then it is perfect for you (glad it helped somone i wasnt sure) i really posted the link with EI in mind for people that didnt want to or couldnt find the raw chemicals, but you should still try and find the raw chemicals, simply because they are so much cheaper.

Just as i think of it, i also replied in another thread earlier today about Fleet Enema, this is a phsphate based product and it seems to be widely available in chemist shops, this is what i use as a source of phosphate for doseing with the EI method, it comes in a green and white box and is called "Fleet Ready-to-use enema Phosphate formula" it is very cheap, so perhaps you could visit your local chemist and see if they have it available, i will post in the EI thread as to how to calculate the doseage for this alternative product, so if you could source this you would not have to buy the Seachem phosphate product again, and its probably 10 times cheaper.

Ok as regards doseing, you will have to use the calculator to work that out.

Here are the suggested guidelines or parameters you should keep within.

CO2 range 20-30ppm (keeping as near to 30 is best)

NO3 (nitrate) 5-30ppm (try and target a level of 10ppm initially, build it up slowly if you are starting at 0 nitrate)

K (potassium) 10-30ppm

PO4 (phosphate) 1.0-2.0 ppm (again build it up slowly in the beginning)

Depending on your water parameters you will probably also have to dose iron or FE.

You will also need PH, Kh, nitrate and phosphate test kits, these are essential in the beginning to give you guidence, particularily to find the levels of NO3 and PO4 in your tapwater, a Gh test kit can also be useful, these can come with the Kh kit.

So those are the guidelines, what i suggest you do is follow the EI thread and post any further questions in there, to keep it all in one place for others to follow as well, others are also posting there and following the thread, but just remember the same principles apply to yourself as regards the EI method you are just useing pre bought fertilisers.

Oh yeah i forgot in the above list to add trace elements as well typically for a tank your size 10ml by 3x per week.

Anyway hope this makes some sense and is of some help, just post in the other thread if you need to know anything else.

Edit: i forgot to ask what lighting are you useing WPG

 

[OIJ]

Thanks zig

Your really know how to give a very knowledgeable, thourough answer Excellent!!!

The Juwel reactor uses a pressurised bottle similar to a full fledged system, very neat. You can see it on their homepage Juwel UK In my opinion this could be much a more stable system than the Nutrafin or DIY system, especially when you add refills. Im not so good in the DIY department and no time for it either (wife and kids supposedly I spend too much time with the fishtank) so I need something that is not time consuming and could be easy to refill.

The reason I have the Seachem materials is that I had most of them before the EI thread started and an interesting threat it is. I had never heard about it before until recently. When I saw the importance of Pottasium I purchased it with Nitrogen the other day. I reasoned to try out EI this way and when I have finished most of the bottles I plan to find the right ingredients locally, if I can that is. The calculator in the other thread will be very helpful in this.

I hope to get a good balance this way but first I have to decide on the CO2 unit.

 

[zig]

Hiya OIJ

I cant find the co2 system on the Juwel homepage, anyway there are many systems on the market it just depends on how much you want to spend, gf225 a moderator on this section of the forum is getting and installing a pressurised co2 system today for his tank, he will post a thread later (if he can work it all out ) giving step by step instructions on how this is done.

In the meantime you could have a look at this thread from a couple of weeks back, in it we discuss smaller pressurised co2 systems.

CO2

 

[OIJ]

Hello Zig

I saw your edit today.

My lighting is 1.7 WPG (Arcadia Freshwater 38W, Arcadia Tropical 38W and Sylvania Gro-Lux 30W) at the moment, with Arcadia Reflectors on all lights. Growth is ok at the moment (easy plants) but I do realise if I want to add a CO2 unit I would have to add a fourth lightbuld. Which one should come first?

Resently I have had this bad hair algae build up in the tank and today...one dead Discus . On Saturday I saw that the flow from the filter had reduced somewhat and that the bottom of the tank was dirtier than usual. On Sunday morning I disassembled the Eheim filter to find out that it was very badly blocked from slimy dirt. What a difference in the flow after I cleaned it!

I think this is a result of me avoiding to vaccum the gravel too much, you are not supposed too when you have Flourite, they say.

My poor Discus!!!

Do you think the hair algae is a result of dirt in the water or lack of light or nutrients?

My tank.

 

[@ombomb]

If I were you I'd go for the pressurised system.

I've been wrestling with DIY CO2 for several weeks now and am only just (hopefully) getting it right. A pressurised system make every much easier to control, you don't have to experiement with different mixes for the CO2.

Personally I have spent about £50 on 2 Nutrafin kits (which have now been ditched for DIY) + yeast, endless bags of sugar + mineral water which I poured straight down the sink, all of which would have put me at least halfway to a pressurised system for a tank of your size.

 

[OIJ]

I know pressurised is the way to go but this reactor is is the nearest to it I have seen. You just connect a CO2 bottle to it and off it goes, no mix or anything.


P.S. Have to quit smoking so I can taste the CO2

 

[zig]

Hello Zig

I saw your edit today.

My lighting is 1.7 WPG (Arcadia Freshwater 38W, Arcadia Tropical 38W and Sylvania Gro-Lux 30W) at the moment, with Arcadia Reflectors on all lights. Growth is ok at the moment (easy plants) but I do realise if I want to add a CO2 unit I would have to add a fourth lightbuld. Which one should come first?

Resently I have had this bad hair algae build up in the tank and today...one dead Discus . On Saturday I saw that the flow from the filter had reduced somewhat and that the bottom of the tank was dirtier than usual. On Sunday morning I disassembled the Eheim filter to find out that it was very badly blocked from slimy dirt. What a difference in the flow after I cleaned it!

I think this is a result of me avoiding to vaccum the gravel too much, you are not supposed too when you have Flourite, they say.

My poor Discus!!!

Do you think the hair algae is a result of dirt in the water or lack of light or nutrients?

My tank.

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Hiya OIJ

Hmmm poor fish

Thats a hard one to answer, i dont keep discus so i dont know, i imagine the flow didnt help matters as i know they need very clean water and the filtration would have been poor as a result.

As regards your hair algae you would have to post your water parameters to give me a better idea, nitrate levels, phosphate if you know it etc, whatever you can, its obviously a nutrient deficiency of some sort, and the algae is taking advantage.

If you want to go for highlight tank and add another tube, i would recommend you get the co2 in place first and have this up and running, how much more light do you intend to add?

With 1.7 WPG you dont really need co2 but if you add more tubes then you will probably need it , but for now you probably dont, unless you want to grow a more varied veriety of plants then you should consider another tube and co2, but at the moment you dont need it, the addition of co2 will benifit plants even if you had 1 WPG but it isnt absolutly nescessary.

 

[OIJ]

Thanks again Zig (why dont they make you a moderator?)

At least I know now that I have to check the tube of the intake of the filter. The flow was suspiciously low.

My aim, as everyone's I think, is to have a nice tank, like yours for example algae free, with good growing plants and good healthy fish. George and you seem to have found a way of doing it through the correct amount of light and the right dosage of nutrients.

I moved into Discus only recently. Before the tank was overcrowded with Anglefish, Gouramis, Livebearers (too many fry!!!!), Dwarf Chiclids. All I kept was my Otos, Corys and then I added some Sparkling gouramis and 20 tetras. My NO3 used to be 20ppm and fell down to 10ppm when I added the third bulb.

I plan to add at least one more light bulb of at least 30W (could add 38W but then it is four times more expensive), then I would have 2.15 WPG. I hope this amount of light is enough to grow Riccia, I like what can be done with that plant.

One benenfit I see in CO2 is that it seems to be possible to use it to control the Ph value. Today I am using Natron and really feel guilty when I put it into the water but I have been told that it zeros the water at Ph 7, and it does. Otherwise My Ph would be around 7.5 or 8. My Kh is either 2 or 3, not sure. Other parameters are perfect, NO3 never goes below 5 ppm. I dont yet have a Phosphate or a Gh test kit. I am told that the Gh value of the water here is very low but I have to test it soonest also I have to test Posphate.

One thing I did the other day was to add Phosphate, without testing it. Maybe the algea increased I am not sure.