DIY Reactor Problem

[kreativ]

Hello guys, not sure if i should've posted this one in equipment section, but my problem is that i built a reactor,with a Rio-400, and the suction part of a gravel vacuum. First i placed it inside my tank side ways. So instead of dissolving the bubble, it was accumulating all bubbles and forming a massive bubble, so when it was big enough, it was coming out through a corner of the sponge i have at then end. Anyways i placed the reactor facing up. Same thing happened. So i places the reactor facing down. Now its working good but like after a few hours the reactor that it was full of water inside it gets only half so the bubbles cannot dissolve anymore because the co2 line is not submerged in water. I need to get the reactor full of water again like every two hours. Any ideas?? Hope you guys understood my problem. Sorry for the confusion.

[JHipkin]

Try putting a venturi loop into the reactor. Drill a hole in the side of the reactor so you can run some tubing into the Gravel vacuum tube. Have the tubing end near the top of the tube. Run the other end through the housing of the powerhead so that it siphons excess CO2 back into the powerhead intake. This will send undissolved gas into the impeller to be chopped up into tiny bubbles. If you do this watch your bubble rate. You will be putting a lot of CO2 into the water column which may affect your fish. Good luck.

[kreativ]

i did drill a whole and ran like 3 inches of co2 line inside the vacuum tube. I don't understand why half of the water inside is gone if the thing is submerged.

[tazcrash69]

Sounds like you are trying to push too many bubbles through. You want the pump pushing the water down, and the bubble trying to rise up against it.
If the pump is not strong enough to push the bubble down it will collect at the top undissolved. now multiply that by a couple hundred bubbles, and you have a great big gas pocket.
If you can try a tube with a smaller diameter, or as a friend has done, a ketchup or BBQ sauce bottle that has a neck that narrows to the cap this way when the bubble starts rising, the diameter is narrower, and the flow is faster, pushing it back down.
Or a bigger pump if you have one. Also make sure that the bubble is being released as low as possible without just getting pushed out of the reactor.

HTH

[JHipkin]

Originally Posted by kreativ

i did drill a whole and ran like 3 inches of co2 line inside the vacuum tube. I don't understand why half of the water inside is gone if the thing is submerged.

You need two lines into the vacuum tube. One delivers the CO2 from the source and the other collects the excess CO2 and siphons it back to the impellers of the pump. Here is a link, there are many others.

[kreativ]

ok thanks guys, ill make my co2 line running inside the reactor bigger.