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Old 08-04-2003, 09:56 PM
 
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Default Dupla Reactor 400 problem

My current setup is - Dupla co2 bottle of 1kg , Dupla bubble
counter filled with glycerine, Dupla co2 long term test, Dupla
Reaktor 400 with the 6th hole unplugged, a Hagen powerhead
with adjustable flow from 0 to 450 liters per hour connected
to the reaktor only, 1 bubble every 6seconds. My aquarium
is 80 x 30 x 40cm - 96liters - abt 80liters net,ph 8.5, kh 8.

After one week while the co2 was continously on - day and night -
the Co2 test still shows the blue color.


Measure the pH vs kH.
This is better than the visual test you have. See pH/KH/CO2 table at
www.sfbaaps.com under "references". Follow over to the pH over you'll
need for a CO2 level of 20-30ppm range for the KH of 8. About 6.9-7.0
or so is good.
Now add only CO2 to do this.

You can add more bubbles per second or increase the flow rate through
the reactor. Might want to plug all the holes on the reactor for now.

My problem is that if I decrease the water flow through the reactor
and also the bubble rate (I have succeeded to adjust even down to 1
bubble every 15seconds) some bubbles still escape through the 6th
capacity hole in the reactor. If I increase the water flow keeping
the same bubble rate or increasing it a bit some gas in the central
chamber is pushed down and out of the reactor through the lower screen.


Try this, fed the bubble into the powerhead's intake instead and tie
off the reactor's CO2 input.
This way the water and gas will be atomized by the pump first then
shot over the media inside the chamber.
Plug the last 6 th level hole up etc.

This size reactor should have enough capacity for your small tank.

I have tried to turn on both the water and the co2 in the same
time or first to fill the reactor with gas and then to turn on
the water but the result was the same.


Don't worry about day to day fluxes in the reactor. Some drop is going
to happen but overall just make sure the pH is in a good range all day
length long.

When I have received the package the co2 bottle was filled
with gas. I have not done any test to see if it is co2 inside
but I do presume that it cannot be filled with another
gas as it has a special valve thread used only for co2.


That's very unlikely.

I am telling you this because it looks that, no matter what approach
I am using, I am losing too much gas and the color of the co2
test does not switch to green which means that there is not enough
co2 disolved in the water.

Thanks beforehand for your help.


Regards,
Tom Barr