Wow! What a p.i.t.a.!
Last night, I tried to hook an Aquamedic 1000 co2 reactor to the outlet tube of my Eheim 2028 canister. What I thought might take an hour or two took all night! So many problems, and maybe it's me (I'm a chick, and not too "handy"), or maybe it's the equipment and the instructions (or lack thereof for the reactor). Who knows?
If there's anyone out there who has the same equipment and has had these same problems and come up with satisfactory solutions to them, please post here. A list of some of the problems I encountered:
1)- MAJOR PROBLEM- apparently, my DIY co2 pressure is not strong enough to push through the co2 tubing and against the water pressure into the reactor to begin with. This is frustrating, because the main reason I BOUGHT the reactor is so that I'd have better co2 diffusion. So now, the reactor is now just a continuation of the outlet tubing. Completely useless for it's intended purpose.
2)- The whole reactor/ outlet tubing connection and placement is just a big mess. Firstly, as Falcon mentioned in another thread on setting this up, the outlet from the canister goes to the TOP of the reactor, and from the BOTTOM of the reactor, goes to the spraybar (TOP of the tank). So, essentially, the tubing needs to make two cumbersome u-turns.
Because the intake/outlet holes of the reactor are 12/16mm, and the canister tubing is 16/22mm, I had to use a short length of 12/16mm tubing, connecting to a 12/16-16/22 reducer/enlarger, and then connect that to the reactor and outlet tubing. Of course, the 12/16mm tubing has thinner walls and is weaker, and I didn't want it to kink (collapse), so I made the smaller tubing's length as short as possible- just long enough for the reducer to fit through. And the 16/22mm tubing is so rigid that it requires a lot of space above and below the reactor for the tubing to curve up and down.
So, I have a lot of rigid 16/22mm tubing taking up a lot of space in the cabinet below my tank.
3)- In the interest of aesthetics, because of the problems with the tubing mentioned above, I chose to temporarily mount the reactor underneath the tank (with a bungee cord). The mounting plate that came with the reactor was- in my opinion- impractical for mounting directly onto a wall or onto the wood of the cabinet. There's an awkward gap of about 1" created by cylindrical outcroppings on the mounting plate and the actual plate itself where the screws should go. If anyone has come up with a better way to mount this this, please post photos!
4)- I had a h*** of a time slipping the tubing onto the barbed reducers (especially the thinner 12/16mm tubing), even when greasing liberally with Eheim's included grease. My palms this morning are still feeling raw. I finally got help from my boyfriend, but even he had a very difficult time with it. Are there tricks to doing this that I don't know about?
If anyone can help with suggestions, improvements, pictures, diagrams, tips, etc. on this set up, they would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks!
Last night, I tried to hook an Aquamedic 1000 co2 reactor to the outlet tube of my Eheim 2028 canister. What I thought might take an hour or two took all night! So many problems, and maybe it's me (I'm a chick, and not too "handy"), or maybe it's the equipment and the instructions (or lack thereof for the reactor). Who knows?
If there's anyone out there who has the same equipment and has had these same problems and come up with satisfactory solutions to them, please post here. A list of some of the problems I encountered:
1)- MAJOR PROBLEM- apparently, my DIY co2 pressure is not strong enough to push through the co2 tubing and against the water pressure into the reactor to begin with. This is frustrating, because the main reason I BOUGHT the reactor is so that I'd have better co2 diffusion. So now, the reactor is now just a continuation of the outlet tubing. Completely useless for it's intended purpose.
2)- The whole reactor/ outlet tubing connection and placement is just a big mess. Firstly, as Falcon mentioned in another thread on setting this up, the outlet from the canister goes to the TOP of the reactor, and from the BOTTOM of the reactor, goes to the spraybar (TOP of the tank). So, essentially, the tubing needs to make two cumbersome u-turns.
Because the intake/outlet holes of the reactor are 12/16mm, and the canister tubing is 16/22mm, I had to use a short length of 12/16mm tubing, connecting to a 12/16-16/22 reducer/enlarger, and then connect that to the reactor and outlet tubing. Of course, the 12/16mm tubing has thinner walls and is weaker, and I didn't want it to kink (collapse), so I made the smaller tubing's length as short as possible- just long enough for the reducer to fit through. And the 16/22mm tubing is so rigid that it requires a lot of space above and below the reactor for the tubing to curve up and down.
So, I have a lot of rigid 16/22mm tubing taking up a lot of space in the cabinet below my tank.
3)- In the interest of aesthetics, because of the problems with the tubing mentioned above, I chose to temporarily mount the reactor underneath the tank (with a bungee cord). The mounting plate that came with the reactor was- in my opinion- impractical for mounting directly onto a wall or onto the wood of the cabinet. There's an awkward gap of about 1" created by cylindrical outcroppings on the mounting plate and the actual plate itself where the screws should go. If anyone has come up with a better way to mount this this, please post photos!
4)- I had a h*** of a time slipping the tubing onto the barbed reducers (especially the thinner 12/16mm tubing), even when greasing liberally with Eheim's included grease. My palms this morning are still feeling raw. I finally got help from my boyfriend, but even he had a very difficult time with it. Are there tricks to doing this that I don't know about?
If anyone can help with suggestions, improvements, pictures, diagrams, tips, etc. on this set up, they would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks!