frustration with my setup

965 Views 5 Replies 2 Participants Last post by tazcrash69, Oct 25, 2007

fjf888

Discussion Starter · Oct 25, 2007

Help!

I have had my pressurized CO2 system setup for about a month now. I purchased the system from Ultralife. The company is little help when I call. I was going ok for a couple weeks, and finally was started to get great plant growth. It was a struggle getting everything right the first two weeks.

Last night I checked my pH and it was up to 7.6 (normal ph without cO2, KH is 4) and I noticed large bubbles coming out from the top of the reactor, obviously all my CO2 is dissapating into the air as the bubble hits the surface. I tried tweeking everything from the location of the reactor turning it on its side right side up, increasing and decreasing the powerhead flow and nothing. I already had to replace the airstone in the reactor get make the bubbles more fine.

Any suggestions from pros out there much appreciated, perhaps I just have a crappy reactor. I attached a picture of what I purchased. The reactor is bascially a cylinder with a diffuser, and 3 bioballs

Fred

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tazcrash69

· #2 · Oct 25, 2007

It's hard to tell from the pic what the reactor is like, but CO2 should never come out of the top. Sounds like there is a leak there.
Looks like the CO2 line should connect into the top barb, power head to the top side input.
HTH

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fjf888

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 25, 2007

Thanks for the reply

Attached is a better picture, maybe then you can see what obviously dumb mistake I made

thanks

Fred

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tazcrash69

· #4 · Oct 25, 2007

Hey, live and learn.

For anyone reading: CO2 bubbles rising up + water flowing down = dissolved CO2.

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fjf888

Discussion Starter · #5 · Oct 25, 2007

Actually I have it set up like you said. Powerhead hooked into the top side and CO2 coming directly to the top.

Apologize for the noob questions, but I had no diagram to work with. What is happening is that the bubbles are coming from the airstone, like selzter, which is fine. They congregate at the top and come out as a large 1 cm diameter bubble from the plastic arm piece as shown in the pic. Should that piece be simply plugged? I did not received anything with the setup to that would plug the piece.

Thanks

Fred

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