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CO2 reactor may not be necessary

W

willjones

Member
Joined
18 May 2008
Messages
47
In my 200L aquarium I allow the CO2 to bubble into the intake tube of my external canister filter. I only use about 10 bubbles per minute and only very occasionally do very small bubbles come out of the outflow of the filter. This is sufficient to turn my drop checker lime green.
The advantage of this method over using an inline reactor is that there is virtually no loss of flow.
Hence my eheim 2026 filter rated at 950lph achieves a fairly respectable 750lph! Not trying to show off, just thought that this could be useful to other hobbyists!
 
How have you measured the lph at 750? Was this with all hoses attached and all media inside? I would've expected it to be nearer 550/600 when clean!!! and a even less when ready for cleaning

Lots of people do bubble CO2 into their intake. Eheim don't advise it though as they say it will degenerate the rubber O ring seals prematurely.

I prefer to use a ceramic disc meaning that the only part the filter plays is to push the saturated water around.

Andy
 
SuperColey1 said:
Eheim don't advise it though as they say it will degenerate the rubber O ring seals prematurely.
Click to expand...

this is very true.. all you need to do though is to make sure you vasaline any O rings every few months. This keeps them hydrated and prevents the CO2 from degrading them.
 
Just checked my sum and I exagerrated a bit, the actual flow rate was 680 lph. I calculated it using an 8L bucket (lph = (60*60*8)/time to fill to 8L in seconds). The filter was full of media at the time and had a UV filter and inline heater attached, I took a while figuring out a low resistance system. I have posted a diagram on another thread showing how to do it. My tip is to split flow around high resistance inline items and put two intakes on your filter, makes life easier for your pump.
Will keep an eye on the O ring seals, suppose they're easy enough to replace if worst comes to worst.
Is the ceramic disc in the aquarium? My aim, of course is to have as little equipment in the aquarium as possible.
 
Yes it is in the aquarium but I like my glassware so is no problem for me. glass in and out pipes, glass DC and glass diffusor all adds to the look IMO. I thing all the glassware looks cool.

Different things for different tastes as always. lol

Andy
 
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