Easternlethal
Member
If you can pump in 4-5bps without filling the reactor with air and causing the pump to fail at the end of the day then you can assume it's going into the water.
But if you want to fine tune your reactor set up for optimal efficiency then you are facing the main problem with using reactors and canister filters - because Konsa is right that reactors depend a lot on flow and you cannot easily change because you are constricted by the canister's pump. Then you either have to change the canister until you find the right one for the reactor or attach another pump in series to your canister output (which will eventually cause a strain between the two pumps working at different capacities and cause problems), or find a canister which can house different pumps and get a variable speed pump.
For this reason I think that manufacturers of reactors should specify flow rates necessary rather than the size of the tank, which to me is useless and also misleading.
If you want to avoid this hassle (esp more noise) then consider switching to a diffuser. An inefficient reactor which pumps co2 into the water without dissolving is basically just a diffuser, but very good aquascapes are being achieved with them anyway.
But if you want to fine tune your reactor set up for optimal efficiency then you are facing the main problem with using reactors and canister filters - because Konsa is right that reactors depend a lot on flow and you cannot easily change because you are constricted by the canister's pump. Then you either have to change the canister until you find the right one for the reactor or attach another pump in series to your canister output (which will eventually cause a strain between the two pumps working at different capacities and cause problems), or find a canister which can house different pumps and get a variable speed pump.
For this reason I think that manufacturers of reactors should specify flow rates necessary rather than the size of the tank, which to me is useless and also misleading.
If you want to avoid this hassle (esp more noise) then consider switching to a diffuser. An inefficient reactor which pumps co2 into the water without dissolving is basically just a diffuser, but very good aquascapes are being achieved with them anyway.
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