MPrudent

I know this topic has been touched on a couple of times but I just wanted to share my build in case someone wanted some other ideas. Generator was accomplished with a simple 2L bottle with an airline running out of it. Gas separator was built the same way. Reactor/diffuser was achieved with a power head, old gravel vac, and an airstone. I know the photos are missing check valves but the ones I had were leaking so I will pick some new ones up tomorrow and put them in-line. I posted photos of the main components. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

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MrWaxhead

Looks like all should work well as long as there is no leaks in the caps, one thing that I found really helpful back when I ran DIY C02 was to run a pair of 2L bottles before the separator and change them on alternating weeks, that way you always have a good strong gas supply as it tends to start strong and taper off as it goes. I had a open close valve on the lines from the 2L lines and I would close the line on the bottle I was changing to prevent air from getting back to the other bottle as that temporaroly slows the yeast from attacking the sugars.

Also different mixes run longer I found brown sugar and champagne yeast gave me my longest running output.

MPrudent

No leaks....air stone is going strong and the reactor seems to be working very well. I was thinking about experimenting with oher mixtures but didn't want to get too crazy my first time around.

gcity02

how much did that setup cost you?

MPrudent

Well I had everything laying around so it was free haha. If you had to buy everything to make that setup I would think it would cost no more than $30.

mr. Clown Loach

how do you put the reactor together i can't see it

hop2jr

If its like mine he took an old gravel vav tube and attached the hose to the powerhead outlet blowing water through the tube, then took an airstone attached to CO2 and put that in the bottom of the vac tube, the water coming down churns up the bubbles.

hop2jr

Oh ya nice diy set-up if you can drop 40 bucks check this out its tiny.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...4&pcatid=15524

mr. Clown Loach

what's the propel bottle there for

agabr123

great set up, thanks for posting!

MPrudent

The Propel bottle is the gas separator. If some gunk were to ever make it into the tube it would just transfer to the propel bottle and not make it to the tank.

OldMan

If you put a little water into the propel bottle and use a longer piece of tubing on the inlet side, you have a home made bubble counter too. You can literally count the bubbles that form and bubble up through the water to get to the outlet tube. Keep the water level low and the outlet tube short so that if you have any carry over from the yeast bottle there is lots of space to prevent yeast mix getting to the tank.

Kayin1470

erm, pardon my ignorance, what is the purpose of this... device..

killudead

Generally, the separator is used to collect excess yeast liquid that is bubbled up through the lines.

The diffuser/reactor allows almost 100% diffusion of Co2 gas to be absorbed into the water of the aquarium.:

or you could always


but what i would like to know is what brand/model powerhead are you using and how "big" is the gravel vac? Like hose size, etc.. everyone shows great pics but lacks the details.

MPrudent

The power head is a maxi-jet 1200 with a flow rate of 295gph. The gravel vac was an old medium sized vac with a 3 ft tube that was cut down to about 10-12". The diameter on the tube is probably about 1/2". The best thing about this vac is the fact that it has a grate on the bottom with very thin slits. This allowed me to fill the vac with gravel and make it that much harder for the co2 gas to be pushed out the bottom. I would estimate I get about 95-100% diffusion rate with this setup.

djbrist

Do I have this right? I hope you can see this jpeg... has 2 mixture bottles into 2-way valve w/ shutoffs then into seperator then into checkvalve then to bubble stone which is in vac tube with tube running to air inlet of powerhead.

Thanks,
Dave

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MPrudent

Yes that looks fine to me. Now remember, with shutoffs you will need some sort of pressure relief system to avoid a blow-out. I used a "t" fitting and just put it inline between the generator and the shutoff valve. Then you put a cap on the open port of the "t" that can blow off in case of emergency. As I have found out, a 2L bottle can handle a pretty significant amount of pressure but better safe than sorry.

MrWaxhead

Hey hey djbrist, that sketch is pretty much what your looking at, just to give you a heads up, your bottle 2 shows a line going deep into the mixture bottle, you dont want that, as you only want to draw gas, not liquid from the bottle. And in your separator, you want the line from the generators to go deep into the bottle so you can see how many bubbles per sec come into that bottle, and the line out to your reactor should be very short again like the generator bottles as again you only want to draw the gas from the bottle and none of the liquid. Also to give you a heads up running c02 into a powerhead will eventually kill the impeller as the c02 being made is creates a low level acid that weekens the plastic blades on the impeller. It does work fairly well but it will shorten the life of the powerhead.

Here is a link from tom barrs site on a very well designed reactor that may come in handy for you as well. http://www.barrreport.com/articles/3...2-reactor.html they work extremely well, and have a very high rate of dissovling the gases, and don't put any wear and tear on the impeller as its basically just using the out flow to mulch the c02 in the separtor and not actually running through it.

MrWaxhead

Oh I just noticed you didn't plan on going through the impeller of the powerhead and in right after it, so wear on the impeller is not going to be a issue for you. The other points are crucial though as you don't want to draw liquid only gas. And the link I gave you is a very very effective design, one of the best DIY ones I have seen out there. That guy knows his stuff extremely well.

djbrist

Thanks MrWaxhead! BTW great looking planted 50 gal,I like...

Dave

cg49me

Does anyone think that one of these...

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...6&pcatid=12216

...would help diffuse the co2 into the water? I just put together one of these home jobs myself, and the only way I've got to get it into the water is through an airstone (don't have canister filters).