[NJAquaBarren]

Here's a newbie question. I have the Red Sea Max vortex reactor. Currently it is running at about 10 bps. That's more than I thought it could handle.

My CO2 saturation is still a little less than 15ppm. This is an 85 tank. Moderately planted. 10bps seems like a lot of co2. No bubbles are leaking, or burping out of the reactor. The idea of a vortext swirling water and gas continually, disolving gas into water as the water leaves the chamber makes sense to me.

It is absorbing 10bps. Very occasionally a few fine bubbles will leave the reactor, but not many. If the reactor wasn't efficient, wouldn't there be bubbles leaking out of the chamber?

So if 10bps are being disolved, why is ppm just at 15? Water is a little hard, so that could be one reason (GH 11.2, KH 8.2)

So where are the bubbles??? My bubbles???

I should say, everything's growing, but still wonder why I don't approach 30 ppm with 10bps.

 

[markstanfill88]

Cant tell you, but if the fish are happy, plants are happy, and you are not fighting algae, then I would consider it conquered.

 

[Darkblade48]

You never mentioned how large your tank is. For (say) a 10g tank, 10 bps would seem very high, and I would suggest a leak somewhere.

If, however, your tank was (say) a 90g, 10 bps would be in the right ballpark.

 

[CL]

You could also be off gassing your CO2 if you have too much surface agitation. For an 85 gallon tank, it would take more bps to get CO2 up to 30ppm. The reactor you are using might not be distributing the cos throughout the entire tank.

 

[NJAquaBarren]

Its an 85g tank. There is minimal surface agitation, the spraybar is turned to spray slightly downward into the tank. The reactor is below the spray bar, 2/3 down the back of the tank. fertz are carried everywhere when I dump them in above the reactor, so dist should be OK.

Thanks for the inputs. Thought I'd do a sanity check before playing with more bps, different reactor, etc...

 

[mott]

I used to have the red sea reactor and could barley get 3 bps without the reactor burping.

 

[NJAquaBarren]

Hi Mott. Yes I've read that from others...after I bought mine.

This one is taking 10bps though. Looks like it may handle more as I still only get a few fine bubbles expelled once in a while.

In the morning my drop checker is a pretty blue, but is green in a couple of hours, light green by evening so I know its working. It would be interesintg to see if another method would turn the drop checker green faster. Someday. I have to admit that I like not having any bubbles in the tank so I'll probably stay the course until it fails or my CO2 demand outpaces its ability.

I also did have the problem of the reactor not staying stuck on the glass after a couple of months. I removed it for cleaning then it wouldn't stay. I cleaned the glass a little and then it stuck perfectly. I'd say it is suction-cup challenged, but on clean glass it seems fine.

Funny how things vary tank to tank. I have to admit that I like not having any bubbles in the tank that other methods produce, so I'll probably stay the course until it fails or my CO2 demand outpaces its ability.