ojustaboo
Member
- Joined
- 15 Mar 2011
- Messages
- 200
Hi all, title not making it clear at all.
I built a home made reactor a couple of months ago that's connected to the output of my external filter. It seems to be working reasonably well.
I have 2 problems, both I THINK I have the answer to, but am not sure what I need.
1) The first problem that's becoming a REAL pain is my weekly water change and me changing the filter wool in my Eheim 2073 filter.
What used to be a very simple process, closing a lever to release/shutoff the in/output pipes, doing whatever was needed to the filter, putting in/output pipes back and opening the lever, filter filled back up with water and everything sprang into life,
has now turned into a nightmare.
My reactor is basically
Only thing not shown is the downpipe with the CO2 input on.
What's happening is, every time I have to remove my filter, I'm having a nightmare getting air out of this reactor and getting the flow to start again. Even if I fill my filter to the brim before I put the top back on, it's still taking me up to 1hr to get the flow going properly again.
I'm having to loosen the top of my reactor, like bleeding a radiator, until water is coming out, even then the flow won't start. I'm having to use a towel over the top of the reactor, letting it fill up with water and get drenched, before all the air is out allowing the flow to start up again.
This is obviously unacceptable, hence I need to look at alternatives.
I'm currently looking at the possibility of ditching my home made reactor for the up atomizer one as per foxfish's pic in viewtopic.php?f=21&t=15815&start=20
or getting one of the Aquagro TM 1500 reactors.
Or the other alternative I can think of (one that I may well still use if I went for the TM 1500 due it using 12mm tubing) is to simply remove the reactor from the filter and give it it's own supply. Only danger of this is with my reactor, I cant see what's happening, hence would need to regularly remember to check for air in it, but it would mean I can leave it alone and have my filter completely separate.
The big how long is a piece of string question here is what so you all recommend I do please
If that's too silly a question, what sort of pump can I use to simply take water out of the tank, into the reactor and back into the tank with no filtration? I presume things like the "Superfish Aqua circulation pump" is no good for this? It looks from the web pics that it doesn't have both input and output tails?
2) I need better circulation in my tank (plants on one side doing a lot better than same plants on other), hence I presume I need something like the Superfish circulation pump to achieve this. It's a 170Lt corner tank, very deep, any idea on the sort of size circulation pump I should be looking for, would 650lt ph be too much, not enough etc?
Many thanks all
Joe
I built a home made reactor a couple of months ago that's connected to the output of my external filter. It seems to be working reasonably well.
I have 2 problems, both I THINK I have the answer to, but am not sure what I need.
1) The first problem that's becoming a REAL pain is my weekly water change and me changing the filter wool in my Eheim 2073 filter.
What used to be a very simple process, closing a lever to release/shutoff the in/output pipes, doing whatever was needed to the filter, putting in/output pipes back and opening the lever, filter filled back up with water and everything sprang into life,
has now turned into a nightmare.
My reactor is basically
Only thing not shown is the downpipe with the CO2 input on.
What's happening is, every time I have to remove my filter, I'm having a nightmare getting air out of this reactor and getting the flow to start again. Even if I fill my filter to the brim before I put the top back on, it's still taking me up to 1hr to get the flow going properly again.
I'm having to loosen the top of my reactor, like bleeding a radiator, until water is coming out, even then the flow won't start. I'm having to use a towel over the top of the reactor, letting it fill up with water and get drenched, before all the air is out allowing the flow to start up again.
This is obviously unacceptable, hence I need to look at alternatives.
I'm currently looking at the possibility of ditching my home made reactor for the up atomizer one as per foxfish's pic in viewtopic.php?f=21&t=15815&start=20
or getting one of the Aquagro TM 1500 reactors.
Or the other alternative I can think of (one that I may well still use if I went for the TM 1500 due it using 12mm tubing) is to simply remove the reactor from the filter and give it it's own supply. Only danger of this is with my reactor, I cant see what's happening, hence would need to regularly remember to check for air in it, but it would mean I can leave it alone and have my filter completely separate.
The big how long is a piece of string question here is what so you all recommend I do please
If that's too silly a question, what sort of pump can I use to simply take water out of the tank, into the reactor and back into the tank with no filtration? I presume things like the "Superfish Aqua circulation pump" is no good for this? It looks from the web pics that it doesn't have both input and output tails?
2) I need better circulation in my tank (plants on one side doing a lot better than same plants on other), hence I presume I need something like the Superfish circulation pump to achieve this. It's a 170Lt corner tank, very deep, any idea on the sort of size circulation pump I should be looking for, would 650lt ph be too much, not enough etc?
Many thanks all
Joe