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Re: [APD] Re: CO2 reactor help



For a clear reactor you need to use either clear PVC, which
easily fits common PVC fittings but is very expensive
(often 10 times what white PVC costs) or acrylic
cylinder/tubing (which costs much less than clear PVC but
more than white PVC).

The 1/8 thick (i.e., 1/8" thick walls) 3.5" diameter
acrylic tubing fits 3" PVC fittings/couplings/adapters

There are other plastics around but I don't know much about
how well you can cement them with PVC cement.

Here's a source for the acrylic stuff:

http://www.aquaticeco.com/aquatic1v1/itempg.icl?secid=24&subsecid=83&catid=1471&orderidentifier=ID106503669931272113E&itmid=5411&dirpage=dir3&iteminfo4=0&eflag=0&curitempos=4&numitems=6

There isn't a terrific advantage to being able to see
through your reactor except to tell you if it's not filling
with water and when it full of biocrud and needs to be
shaken and rinsed out.

If you talk to Tom Barr, you can probably get one of his
reactors if he still has time to build one.   They are a
simple, elegant design in acrylic, fed with a small
powerhead.

The external on my tank is not homemade.  It's an Aquamedic
(aqualine Buschke) Reactor 1000.  I bought it before I new
much about reactors (back when I couldn't even spell CO2 
;-) )   Now I are smarter and think the 1000 is a bit of
overkill, especially with Home Depot so close by.

A bunch of folks in the Dallas Ft. Worth Aquatic Plant
Club, which is hosting the AGA Annual Convention this year,
recently made some external reactors based on the design
you have probably seen.  They've probably sobered up from
the cement fumes by now and might soon be posting about
their results.  If any of them are reading, speak up!

http://aquatic-plants.org/articles.html

If you use acrylic, you can use flat pieces of acrylic for
the endpieces.  If the pieces are carefully and smoothly
cut, acrylic cement will weld the acrylic pieces together
for watertight joints.  You can then thread or epoxy barbed
fittings into the endpieces.  *Or* you can use PVC glue if
you want to use PVC fittings/adapters for your endpieces.

Hope that helps,
Scott H.

--- Billionzz at aol_com wrote:
> Hi Scott,
> 
>  Would you tell me some more about your external reactor?
> 
>  On my 125g I have an internal reactor using a powerhead,
> sponge, bio balls 
> and 12" gravel cleaner. It works good but I would rather
> have the reactor on 
> the outside of the tank.
> 
>  You wrote that you could see thru yours and that you
> could take it apart, 
> that is the part that I was interested in. I have seen
> the plans to build 
> external reactors but none of them appeared to be clear
> and they didn't look that 
> easy to take apart and clean.
> 
>  So if you get chance would you let me know how yours is
> built?


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