# Nano CO2 reactor



## BigBee (Jul 13, 2006)

Hello everyone

Here is the picture of the reactor that I made for my 12 l tank:

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/aquarium-pictures/showimage.php?i=5235&c=newimages

It's made of a 10 ml syringe and an additional tube inserted into it, to make the whole reactor longer. The top is connected with an airtube to one hole of my filter's spraybar. The CO2 enters from the bottom. One additional thing I had to make was to direct the waterjet to the middle of the syringe. I took the piston, drilled 4 small holes in the middle of the disc, cut it to ~1 cm and I put it back into the syringe.
The whole reactor is placed near the spraybar, so the exiting water from the bottom is also taken away.

Here are the pics taken during the process:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/aquarium-pictures/browseimages.php?c=15&userid=12595&t=


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## Sandman333 (Jan 25, 2008)

That's pretty cool. I really like the scale of it. What made you decide to use a syringe? Are you running this with pressurized or yeast CO2?
What, if anything, were you using before you built this?


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## BigBee (Jul 13, 2006)

Hi Sandman333, you've already said one magic world: scale. Anyway you look at it, space is one thing that a nano just doesn't have. Somehow I still don't like the fact, that almost half of the occupied space is taken by the suction cups.

The other big reason for the syringe was that I could attach both tubes (the airtube for the water and the other one to the bottom ) without any problem. Eversince I've tried DIY things I got nothing but frustration: fittings that won't fit, glues that don't glue, yeast that doesn't ferment and so on. This solution was "plug and play".

The system is pressurized with a 500 g replaceable bottle - not the most cost effective CO2, but still my best investment so far.

My first reactor for this tank was a Dennerle Micro Perler - the smallest diffuser on stock at that time. The problem was that it didn't work at all (was producing big bubbles near the sealing ring). The shop had another one which we've tried there but it was doing the same thing - they gave me a piece of wood instead and the money difference.
This one was almost good at diffusing, but didn't want to stay in the corner. After a while it also got full of algae and started to make bigger bubbles. 
At this point I had one try to make my own reactor, the same type as this but much bigger and uglier, connected to a small internal pump I was using for filtration back then. Eventually I put back the previous wood when I switched to an external filter.
In the meantime, Dennerle came out with a new line of glass CO2 equipment and I ordered the smallest diffuser. However there was a misunderstanding and the shop got the full set, but I didn't want to wait another two weeks and bought the Crystal Set 125. I will review it in a different thread, now I just say that it was below my expectations.
I made this syringe reactor a few days ago, so far it's been running flawlessly.


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## Sandman333 (Jan 25, 2008)

That's some serious frustration, I'm glad you finally have something that works. It's interesting how this final reactor is the simplest one of all your tries, but works the best.


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## BigBee (Jul 13, 2006)

Yes, so far this works the best; and here is my other syringe gadget: a gravel cleaner.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...hp?i=5291&original=1&c=member&imageuser=12595


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## BigBee (Jul 13, 2006)

Bad news, the reactor is starting to malfunction: algae has built up on the four holes reducing the flow dramatically. Maybe it's time for a hardware revision.


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