Re: Aquamedic AM1000 Reactor - Advice?
Hi Andy.
Here's another take on it.
Whilst I don't like disagreeing with others (especially LD)
here are my findings.
I did find a reduction in flow, but this did improve once I took the media out. The AM 1000 has 16mm pipe connections these days, so if you have 16mm pipe in and a 16mm pipe out it follows that, there will not be a major reduction in flow rate caused by the reactor itself. Whilst you would lose some velocity as the water enters the bigger chamber of the reactor, it follows that, if the pressure remains the same, the velocity would increase again when it squeezed back out through the outlet. The reduction in flow is merely caused by the fact that we pump the water in to the top of the reactor and go back out to the tank from the bottom, so the drop in flow rate is because the filter has to pump downwards before it goes upwards. As they say, you don't get something for nothing these days.
As to the 'build up' of gas, that's what they're designed to do, they keep the CO2 in the chamber until it is all dissolved, which it does quite well I might add. All the water going back to my tank does not contain a single CO2 bubble as it is all dissolved in the chamber. The only bubbles in my tank are O2 bubbles
. After about half an hour of the gas going off all the bubbles are gone from the reactor, so it's doing it's job, saturating the water with CO2.
Some people leave the media in so the bubbles get bashed about and the bubble size gets reduced even further but the price you pay for that is impeded flow.
Mine is only running on a 1200lph filter and works fine without the media.
Here's a pic without media
You can just about make out the bubbles, which are always trying to go upwards against the flow, therefore they stay in the reactor until they are dissolved.
All in all, I don't think they do a bad job.
So now you have two opinions, one positive and one negative so I hope we haven't confused you too much.
Now if only they could teach me to scape like you and LD, I'd be well sorted