Re: CO2 injection w/ powerhead

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: Re: CO2 injection w/ powerhead
From: gtong at sirius_com (G.Tong)
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 11:53:09 -0800

>I'm not convinced this is a very effective way to inject CO2.  I
>connected a 2L yeast CO2 reactor to a powehead--the tube from the yeast
>reactor fed the powerhead from below; the impellor was very effective at
>crushing the bubbles but they don't stay in contact with the water very
>long.  Almost immediately, they float to the surface.  As someone here
>mentioned, feeding CO2 to the impellor of a Penguin or Whisper
>powerfilter has the same problem.  The bubbles are not held in contact
>with the water long enough.

In theory, what you say sounds plausible but how does it actually work? If
the results are good, there's no problem.

I hook my yeast CO2 output to the venturi air intake on my Aquaclear
powerhead. The water from my powerhead flows through a two-foot tube to a
spray bar that's level with the top of my substrate. There's no impeller to
break up the bubbles at all and despite the two-foot tube, the CO2 is in
contact with the water for much less than a second. Very small bubbles do
pop out of my spray bar.

With a one liter bottle of yeast solution and this method, I can lower the
pH of a 40-gallon tank from 8.0 to 6.5! My dKh is 3.0.

Greg. Tong
San Francisco, CA, USA
gtong at sirius_com

"Every infinity is composed of only two halves."