Hi all
I'm running a 530 liter planted tank. I'm injecting co2 into the tank, but have trouble with injecting at a sufficiently high rate. I have a heavily planted setup, so it needs quite a lot of co2. To make matters worse i have close to liquid rock in my tap water, which as far as i understand increases the need for co2 injection even further. I'm running an Aqua Medic 1000 reactor, where the large bioballs it comes with, have been substituted for ceramic rings. I substituted the media, in order to increase turbulence in the chamber, in the hope of increasing the absorption rate of co. The reactor is driven by a large cannister filter - flowrate of 1250 liter/hour. I used to run the reactor on the outflow of the filter, but had trouble with it causing a significant reduction in the flowrate of the canister. I've since changed it to be correctly mounted on the intake of the filter, this however has lead to another problem. The canister sucks in co2 from the reactor, into the canister itself, leading to it "burping" out co2 at regular intervals into the aquarium, through the outtake. Worst case it completely stops the flow, so that i have to re-prime the filter.
My question is this. For those of you who run similar or bigger co2 injected and heavily planted tanks - what setup for injection do you use and have you experienced something similar problems? I'm a bit at my wits end on how to solve this. I'm wondering whether the Aqua Medic simply isn't able to inject enough, no matter what i do. According to Aqua Medic it is rated for up to 1200l tanks. So judging by their rating, it should have more than enough capacity.
Thanks
Nicklas
I'm running a 530 liter planted tank. I'm injecting co2 into the tank, but have trouble with injecting at a sufficiently high rate. I have a heavily planted setup, so it needs quite a lot of co2. To make matters worse i have close to liquid rock in my tap water, which as far as i understand increases the need for co2 injection even further. I'm running an Aqua Medic 1000 reactor, where the large bioballs it comes with, have been substituted for ceramic rings. I substituted the media, in order to increase turbulence in the chamber, in the hope of increasing the absorption rate of co. The reactor is driven by a large cannister filter - flowrate of 1250 liter/hour. I used to run the reactor on the outflow of the filter, but had trouble with it causing a significant reduction in the flowrate of the canister. I've since changed it to be correctly mounted on the intake of the filter, this however has lead to another problem. The canister sucks in co2 from the reactor, into the canister itself, leading to it "burping" out co2 at regular intervals into the aquarium, through the outtake. Worst case it completely stops the flow, so that i have to re-prime the filter.
My question is this. For those of you who run similar or bigger co2 injected and heavily planted tanks - what setup for injection do you use and have you experienced something similar problems? I'm a bit at my wits end on how to solve this. I'm wondering whether the Aqua Medic simply isn't able to inject enough, no matter what i do. According to Aqua Medic it is rated for up to 1200l tanks. So judging by their rating, it should have more than enough capacity.
Thanks
Nicklas