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re[2]: Water Flow

>From: "John Y. Ching" <jyching at watnow_uwaterloo.ca>
>Date: Sun, 13 Aug 1995 20:56:52 -0400 (EDT)
>Subject: Re: Water Flow
>
>I have a Fluval 403 in a 90gal tank. My setup is quite similar to what is
>probably the "standard" setup as pictured in the Fluval manual except the
>spray bars are about 5-6 inches below the waterline to minimize CO2 loss.
>The intake is at the left-back corner and the spray bars are pointed
>lightly downward towards the front of the glass. No problem with the water
>flow as far as I can see.
>
>Last week I made a DIY CO2 reactor using part of a gravel vacuum tube.
>The reactor is designed so that water flows down the tube containing some
>bio-balls and CO2 is bubbled in from the bottom. Water containing
>dissolved CO2 flows out of the bottom of the reactor. I connected part of
>the waterflow from the Fluval spray bar (drilled a hole in the end-cap) to
>the CO2 reactor and found that the water pressure is dramatically reduced
>out of the spray bar. This may be a solution if you wish to reduce the
>water pressure from the SB.

I have Fluval 303 in my 50gal tank. My intake is on the bottom-left-back corner 
and the return spray bar is about 2" below water line on the right-back. Removed
the end-cap and fitted an elbow to direct the output to lower part of front 
glass. This greatly reduce the water coming out of spray bar and I have a good 
flow in the front portion glass from right to left. 

Me too connect an air-line tube from spray bar to input of reactor. I made my 
reactor from two clear plastic(?) tit-bits containers. The CO2 come from bottom 
and get trapped in the container. The water with CO2 flow out from bottom. The 
container also work as viewing for bubble counting. Below is the sketch of my 
reactor. I found that I can be without CO2 generator for 2 days and my plants 
still producing O2 bubbles. Give me lots of time to make a new sugar-yeast 
mixture. Don't know how efficient is the reactor but as long as my plants is 
producing bubbles and growing well, I am happy.


                          | |  water from part of spray bar enter here
                          | |
                    +-----+ +-----+
                    |             |
                    |         <------------- CO2 trapped here
                    |             |
                    |             |
                    |  |       |  |
                    |  |       |  |
                    |  |       |  |
                    |  |       |  |
                    |  |     <-------------- use for viewing bubbles,
                    |  |       |  |          some water trapped here.
                    |  |       |  |
                    + -+--+ +--+- +
                          | |    | 
                     |    | |    V 
                     V     CO2 from generator enter here
                    Water+CO2 flow out.

rgds..kbkoh