# DIY External Inline CO2 Reactor



## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Check it out:

http://www.cichliddomain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

Wow, that's a super reactor! Well constructed with great photos to go along with the setup. Did you install an easy way to clean out the bioballs, if need be? Any problems with gas build up in the reactor yet. I've never tried build myself a reactor, but I hear that's the common problem (gas build up) and then you have to shake it or something...

Looks fantastic!

-John N.


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

John N. said:


> Wow, that's a super reactor! Well constructed with great photos to go along with the setup. Did you install an easy way to clean out the bioballs, if need be? Any problems with gas build up in the reactor yet. I've never tried build myself a reactor, but I hear that's the common problem (gas build up) and then you have to shake it or something...
> 
> Looks fantastic!
> 
> -John N.


This section un screws to allow access to the bio balls:








I have had no problems with this reactor yet. I am working on plans to install the PH probe into the reactor, more to follow.....DC


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## Scoutmaster Steve (Jan 12, 2006)

Hold the phone here. I don't think you want the probe in the reactor. I would think you would get low low readings there while your tank may show no CO2 at all. Much like putting your house thermostat in the pilot light on your furnace...It would be hot and not your house.


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

I was thinking the same thing as Steve. My gut reaction is you'll get false readings if you position the probe in that fashion.


-John N.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Diablo,

How do you secure the CO2 line to the small barb?

Some friends of mine have huge flows through their reactors and if the CO2 line gets unhooked water under pressure sprays about 10 ft away.

--Nikolay


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Scoutmaster Steve said:


> Hold the phone here. I don't think you want the probe in the reactor. I would think you would get low low readings there while your tank may show no CO2 at all. Much like putting your house thermostat in the pilot light on your furnace...It would be hot and not your house.


You think?, this works just fine, same concept, probe is out of the tank. I know for a fact the probe does not need to be in the main tank to maintain consistent CO2 saturation. http://www.cichliddomain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3
Do you know of any attempts to put the probe in a reactor that failed? I do not understand what the problem would be. If it takes setting the thermostat in the pilot light at 100 degrees (and I think you are wrong with this analogy, you have not even seen a schematic or the setup of what I plan to do) to keep the house at 72, so be it. I will be drilling the tank next weekend and installing 4 bulkheads with 2 cannister filters. One will have this reactor and one will have an external heater. I do not want anything in the tank like my 110 gallon including the PH probe. If it works, and I see no reason why it won't, I will be installing bulkheads on all my show tanks to get the unsightly equipment out of them. I will post pics of the setup......DC


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

niko said:


> Diablo,
> 
> How do you secure the CO2 line to the small barb?
> 
> ...


Did I buy some plants from you on TPT? I use a 3/16" barb with 4mm ID tubing, pretty tight fit, need to heat the tubing to get it on, do not think it is coming off. I would think if your friends tubing was loose enough to ever come off the barb, it would be leaking CO2. Additionally, I would double check the efficiency of a reactor that has "huge flows" going through it. How much is huge? One of the reasons I put a fitting that can be removed on my reactor is to tune the reactor to the tank/filter.....DC


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## bleaklow (Jan 12, 2006)

No it should work great that way. Any control circuit works better if the sensor is as close to the heater/cooler/CO2 input etc as possible. Depending on respective time constants it reduces the oscillations about the set point. Better control if you put in differential feedback and critically damp the response, but in a CO2 system as it's only a solenoid that switches on or off that isn’t possible.

Just have a look in any low temperature physics lab and see how the control circuits work :yawinkle: 

Great looking reactor. 

I've always run my reactor on the intake side of my eheim 2126 aswell. But I swapped it to the out flow last weekend. Seems to be running a lot more efficiently now. Down to 1 bps for a pH drop of 1 in my 55 gal rather than 1.5 - 2 bps before.


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## Scoutmaster Steve (Jan 12, 2006)

diablocanine said:


> You think?, this works just fine, same concept, probe is out of the tank. I know for a fact the probe does not need to be in the main tank to maintain consistent CO2 saturation. http://www.cichliddomain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3
> Do you know of any attempts to put the probe in a reactor that failed? I do not understand what the problem would be. If it takes setting the thermostat in the pilot light at 100 degrees (and I think you are wrong with this analogy, you have not even seen a schematic or the setup of what I plan to do) to keep the house at 72, so be it. I will be drilling the tank next weekend and installing 4 bulkheads with 2 cannister filters. One will have this reactor and one will have an external heater. I do not want anything in the tank like my 110 gallon including the PH probe. If it works, and I see no reason why it won't, I will be installing bulkheads on all my show tanks to get the unsightly equipment out of them. I will post pics of the setup......DC


I totally feel your pain with wanting no equipment in the tank. My 125 is drilled for this reason also. I have visions of the CO2 solenoid turning on and off in rapid succesion as I would expect the Ph in the reactor to be so low due to all the pure CO2 right there that the controller wouldn't handle it. I know watching my reactor, (clear), when it calls for CO2 I get quite a build up of gas that does dissapate quick as soon as my set Ph is attained. No the probe wouldn't have to be in the tank to be accurate, such as in a sump after a reactor.

I think my analogy of the furnace is accurate! Probe equal thermostat and flame equal acid (CO2)

PS Your reactor looks very clean and good wish I had the time to have built rather then buy!


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## bleaklow (Jan 12, 2006)

Scoutmaster Steve said:


> I think my analogy of the furnace is accurate! Probe equal thermostat and flame equal acid (CO2)


Scoutmaster I could be very wrong here but I think your furnace analogy is more like a CO2 sensor (not pH probe) just after the regulator. Thinking of a central heating bioler is just as good. The thermocouple (pH probe) is in the hot water (CO2 reactor) not in the flame (CO2 line).


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## 247Plants (Mar 23, 2006)

Just my analogy about the furnace thing......To me it seems like you are putting the thermostat in the same room as the heater vent in a house with many rooms to heat


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Hmm, lets see post a topic on a CO2 reactor, get close to 300 views, and the majority of comments deal with home heating. WTF....DC


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## TexasRock (Feb 28, 2006)

Devildog,

I'm in the process of building one like yours... I like the concept and have been looking for an external reactor for some time... 

Thanks! It looks great and keep us posted on how you like it and how it works...

TexasRock


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## rrguymon (Jul 22, 2005)

Do you ever have to burp the air out of it? If so how do you do it with it hard mounted like that/

Rick


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Have had no problems....DC



rrguymon said:


> Do you ever have to burp the air out of it? If so how do you do it with it hard mounted like that/
> 
> Rick


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## rrguymon (Jul 22, 2005)

Ok thanks. I have an internal now. It works good but, I want to get it outta my tank. I like you design. I may give it a try.

Rick


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## Tom Higgs (Mar 2, 2006)

could you put a petcock valve on the very top? If gas builds up on the top of the reactor you could open the valve and bleed it off, at least in theory. I'll probably build one of these and was thinking of installing one, may not need it, but it would beat shaking the reactor around. just a thought


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## TexasRock (Feb 28, 2006)

Just so I am understanding this right... the water comes from the tank, through your fluval and then out to the reactor and then to the tank?

:-k


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Yup, I have a new design now, check my "drilling my 55" post....DC



TexasRock said:


> Just so I am understanding this right... the water comes from the tank, through your fluval and then out to the reactor and then to the tank?
> 
> :-k


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## Tom Higgs (Mar 2, 2006)

question on this reactor.... I'm just about ready to glue it all together, but was wondering why the CO2 injection is at the top of the reactor and not the bottom. Wouldnt the bubble traveling up the column react / break up and dissolve more efficienty if it had further to travel against the flow of water? Lastly, I didnt see any dimensions, what is the total height of the unit. Cant wait to hook it up.

Tom Higgs


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Tom Higgs said:


> question on this reactor.... I'm just about ready to glue it all together, but was wondering why the CO2 injection is at the top of the reactor and not the bottom. Wouldnt the bubble traveling up the column react / break up and dissolve more efficienty if it had further to travel against the flow of water? Lastly, I didnt see any dimensions, what is the total height of the unit. Cant wait to hook it up.
> 
> Tom Higgs


It is at the top because I tried it that way first, it worked so I left it. Some folks have it at the bottom. Guess you can do it either way, whatever works is the best way in my book....DC


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

diablocanine said:


> Check it out:
> 
> http://www.cichliddomain.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25


Your link doesn't work. Just goes to some generic hosting site.


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Cichlid Domain got moved to another server this week and has a new url. I am not going to repost the journal, I got a thousand views on my journals and very few responses. The reason I posted them was to get feedback and I received almost none. If I get some idle time I may repost them......DC



banderbe said:


> Your link doesn't work. Just goes to some generic hosting site.


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## Tom Higgs (Mar 2, 2006)

thanks. BTW, what is the total height of the unit?


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Tom Higgs said:


> thanks. BTW, what is the total height of the unit?


Sorry, forgot to answer that question. The total is around 18 inches, I did not worry about exact cuts, cut it to fit into the stand.....DC


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## TexasRock (Feb 28, 2006)

Diablo,

Could you post the pic of the reactor disassembled like what was on the cichliddomain website?

I am about to put mine together and I'd like to follow your design... thanks!

By the way, you 55 gallon set up looks great!

Keith


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

TexasRock said:


> Diablo,
> 
> Could you post the pic of the reactor disassembled like what was on the cichliddomain website?
> 
> ...


Do you mean one of these?


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## TexasRock (Feb 28, 2006)

Yes!

Thanks Devil Dog! 

I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and designs with the rest of us.

Keith


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## banderbe (Nov 17, 2005)

what's the diameter of the pvc?


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

banderbe said:


> what's the diameter of the pvc?


1.5 inch.....DC


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## TexasRock (Feb 28, 2006)

With the CO2 inlet being about mid pipe, do you have any problems with micro bubbles? How many BPS are you running?

Keith


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## TexasRock (Feb 28, 2006)

Also, where did you get the flex tubing that is connected to your pump?

Keith


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

TexasRock said:


> With the CO2 inlet being about mid pipe, do you have any problems with micro bubbles? How many BPS are you running?
> 
> Keith


What kind of problems are you referring to with microbubbles? I use a Milwaukee SMS 122 PH monitor/controller, have no idea what my bubble count is......DC


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

TexasRock said:


> Also, where did you get the flex tubing that is connected to your pump?
> 
> Keith


I got my tubing at local home improvement store, some LFS carry it but they charge more.....DC


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## rit (Apr 30, 2004)

*Diy Co2*

that's very good idea


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## AlexTal (Mar 23, 2006)

Where do you put your pH probe?


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## TexasRock (Feb 28, 2006)

Alex,

He mounted it in his reactor... pretty good idea!

Keith


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## AlexTal (Mar 23, 2006)

Whereabouts on the reactor though? I don't see any spot to put it? Maybe I'm missing something!


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Here is where my DIY projects are posted:

http://www.fellowshipofthefish.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=13

Since the reactor that has the PH probe inline does work, I will be making more. I wanted to make sure it worked first, this time I will take photos and post. You can see the probe mounted in the reactor on these photos. Look around in my DIY projects, you should be able to fiugure out how to make one from there. If not, let me know your questions.



















QUOTE=AlexTal]Whereabouts on the reactor though? I don't see any spot to put it? Maybe I'm missing something![/QUOTE]


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## trilinearmipmap (Mar 8, 2005)

Nice reactor.

Can you list the parts needed to make one? Especially I am not sure about the brass fittings and how they join on to the pvc parts.


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

Which brass fitting? The reactor with or without the PH probe? I will list the parts next one I make. It will be a couple of weeks, planned to do it this weekend but had to work. I will take pics of the whole project when I drill my 37. Sorry for the delay....DC


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## AlexTal (Mar 23, 2006)

DC ... My only question about the pH probe is how do you get it to stick in there and still be water tight? I see the T connector, but what's the piece you're attaching the pH probe in there with? That's my only real question. Thanks in advance.


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## diablocanine (Jul 25, 2004)

You need this....DC

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=OP3171



AlexTal said:


> DC ... My only question about the pH probe is how do you get it to stick in there and still be water tight? I see the T connector, but what's the piece you're attaching the pH probe in there with? That's my only real question. Thanks in advance.


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## AlexTal (Mar 23, 2006)

You are the best.


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