Just wanted to follow up a little more. I appreciate you guys' patience with my noobish theories!
I have decided that, for the sake of my plant's health and my own sanity, I will deviate from my original goal and utilize a powerhead for this project
The design is basically copied from the Barr Venturi I suppose:
My main concern is the 90 degree bend in the powerhead outlet. As I plan it, this will happen at the very, very top of the reactor tube (old gravel-vac syphon). Should I try to move this down the tube at all, or will this be effective enough?
I looked around, and actually have all the necessary components to create one of these reactors, or something like it. The powerhead and such things are drying out right now....hopefully the pump is powerful enough. The plastic tube I have is roughly 12" long, which might be too much I guess. But, I can always cut it down.
Just a seperate, but related observation, which has probably been pointed out before on this forum:
I'm assuming the rate of co2 gas dissolution will increase as the ratio of Surface Area to Volume increases. Simply, more area for the gas to escape. using the equations
Surface area = 4*pi*r^2 and
Volume = 4/3*pi*r^3
it becomes evident that this ratio increases with bubble diameter. Therefore, the rate of co2 dissolution is faster with bigger bubbles.
This fact considered, I am hoping that this reactor will be the best of both worlds. It should increase dissolved co2, as well as create microbubbles. Thoughts/comments are welcome!