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In the AGA Convention thread, a few of us discussed going to Aquashella Dallas which is May 16 and 17
I'm not committed to going yet, but I want to go, and I thought I'd open up this thread for anyone else who might be considering it.
I'm waffling hard on it. A lot of money basically for an aquascaping demonstration.
What do you say?

I’m not an inexperienced aquarist, but I find that fish just die sometimes. Slowly added fish to my tank a couple of months ago and all was well, but within the past week I’ve lost 3 for different reasons.

Honey gourami mysteriously turned pale and slowly declined over a couple of weeks, no external signs of disease.

One of my pseudomugil males got its jaw stuck open. Netted him and manually closed his jaw but it popped back open. Must have injured itself while chasing other fish.

Sucked up a habrosus Cory in my gravel vac during a water change yesterday without realizing and tapped the vac to shake out the obstruction. Seemed okay when I put it back in the tank but found him dead this morning. This one I feel terrible about.

Luckily I source all of my livestock locally, so it’s not difficult for me to purchase one or two fish. But I just wonder how others feel about maintaining their fish numbers and whether people feel comfortable leaving their groups small (6-7 individuals) or rush to replace lost fish.

Hi all, first post. Thought it'd be fine to start a new thread specifically about yugang reactors for smaller tanks, under surface area 3000cm^2 (for the most part). Guess this could be a journal to some degree, but I think this thread is more for info than sharing my tank. I know people are generally using pvc pipes and fittings to DIY their reactors and to keep the cost down. I wanted something that looked super nice and was already "prebuilt". After scouring the internet for the longest time, I found that these PC water cooling reservoirs should serve that purpose.



Maybe someone's tested this already and found out that it doesn't work, but I wanted to put this out there since I haven't seen anything on it. I don't want to gatekeep this and I hope that this gives people another option since not everyone may have tools readily available. Since this is considered a PC component, there are a number of options available for fittings that I'll get into in a bit that make this great.

There are a few downsides though:

1. Limited diameters. I've only seen options for 50 or 60mm diameters. The 50mm ones have 40mm inner diameter, and 60mm ones I assume have 50mm inner.
2. Limited lengths. I've seen them as small as 6cm long all the way to 40cm long. The caps/lids range from 6-10mm thick.

Largest I've seen is 50mm and 400mm long. Useable diameter and length, let's say are 40mm and 380mm respectively. If you want a pH drop of 1.5, largest your surface area can be is 2690cm^2. Obviously you can stretch this if you don't need that large of a pH drop.

3. Standardized G 1/4" thread. This isn't as common a fitting (in the US at least). This thread size can be good or bad.
4. Some others mentioned later.

As for the upsides:
1. Clean look, no DIY necessary, no PVC glue, certain listings come with brackets and screws.
2. Inexpensive, I got a 210mm variant for ~$15USD
3. Outlet is offset to the side. You can rotate as necessary to control in overflow mode.
4. Others mentioned later.

Again, this is for PC water cooling. 95% of the parts I've seen are made of brass. They are however either chrome or nickel plated.

hamfist said:

I have not seen any adverse affects at all, and I do have low KH, low pH water. There are a few amanos living happily in the tank too.

Its a 150g tank with weekly 50% water changes though, so dissolved metals from the connectors must be minimal. You have got be thinking about changing them for nylon ones though.

Click to expand...

Not sure if this will be an issue since brass is ~60% copper. Hamfist's tank is also huge compared to my 60p and it may be dependent on water changes. Having the plating on the fittings will lower the corrosion rate since we are in acidic lower pH water. I honestly don't think this should be a problem at all. There are acrylic and stainless steel options out there if you look for them. I've heard nickel plating is best.

As of right now, I have my ADA 60P freshly cycling on a dark start. I was able to test the co2 functionality (not measure co2 levels). I am able to get a co2 bubble to develop inside and work with overflow. My "reactor" is 210mm long and has 50mm diameter. Calculating with the inner diameter (40mm on mine) and the useable length (190mm if you take away cap length), I should theoretically be able to get a ~1.4ph drop.

The filter I'm using is the Biomaster 350 thermo. Tubing is 5/8" for this, and this is one of the downsides I want to get into. This is for PC cooling like I mentioned and they generally don't use tubing that large. If you're running a filter that uses 12/16mm tubing instead of 5/8" (16/22mm) then you might have a much easier time finding fittings to work. G 1/4" thread is roughly a 1/2" opening. I'm not actually getting less flow with this because I realized the 16/22 quick tap valves I use actually have a 1/2" opening on the inside as well. This G 1/4" thread shouldn't be an issue then. FYI, G 1/4" is the same as 1/4" BSPP. (british standard pipe parallel)


I tried making my setup as NEATLY and good looking as possible. Above is my final work (as of now). I have some tube trimming to do though to make it nicer. Another thing I want to mention, the first time I tried this, I connected my outlet straight to the yugang reactor. I saw this thread reply (below) saying that their 2" pvc (~50mm) had no issue with the flow speed after adjusting their tap valve. That was not true in my experience. My reactor should be about the same size as this one, but the water rushes through very turbently:

TRyan said:

@Yugang has been so generous and helpful to me, held my hand through the calculations and parts questions, and opened to for to the world is CO2 reactors. I wanted to say thank you and that I appreciate your help.

Here's what we came up with. This is for a 60U (24" x 14") 20 gallon tank. 2" clear schedule 40 conduit 6" in length. At first, I mounted the reactor above the canister filter with both 90° elbows pointed down like so.View attachment 5115
This worked ok, but ( I'll add that I built another reactor for my smaller tank) the other reactor has a slightly different design due to space limitations and it worked better. Both of those 90° elbows faced up. So I moved the reactor down and turned both elbows upward like soView attachment 5116
The flow is more gentle and less bubbles. I control the CO2 flow with a regulator. I did not install a bypass or overflow. I'm using double tap disconnects for maintenance and flow adjustment purposes. I'm running an Oase 350 on this tank and need to throttle it down a bit anyways. This quiets everything down and stops the gurgling and sucking in air at the skimmer. I easily hit 1 ph drop in 40 minutes. I'm using a John Guest fitting for CO2 connection, which is threaded into reactor body using 1/8 x 27 NPT tap and 21/64 drill bit.

Such a huge improvement over the inline diffuser I was using. No more micro bubbles!

Click to expand...

And so I had to resort to making a simple bypass. One lesson I learned, don't get a cheap valve on amazon for $5. I placed the valve on the bypass initially:

It slowed the flow so much that almost all water was going through bypass even though valve was fully open. (Don't get cheap Y or T splitters either...)
Here's a video of the flow WITHOUT a bypass. Video starts with tap valve already slightly shut 25% of the way and slowly getting shut more as you can see:
View attachment IMG_7536.mov
It doesn't matter where you put the valve but I think it makes more sense to put it on the reactor side. You can control how slow the flow is that way. Ff you place it on bypass side, you can never slow down water through reactor that way - only more going to it.

You might ask, where's the co2 supposed to go if you don't have the inline accessory that I have? Well there's a threaded acrylic pipe that comes with this reactor if you look at listings. All you need to do is get a 4/6mm push connect to g1/4" male thread fitting for a few bucks and your issue is solved. The threaded acrylic pipe can also be screwed off and there are more extender fittings and such to replace that if you search them online. Options like the 60mm length reservoir I posted above may only have 2 outlets, but the larger 400mm example I gave has 4 holes with different hole positions too. You can place a purge valve that slightly works (there's literally a fitting for that too). The main outlet hole is still offset as well. (another example shown below) Any hole you don't want to use? Just buy a g1/4 plug. The benefit of using this PC cooling reservoir is the amount of fittings they have that can work for your needs.


For my setup, I ended up using a $3 dollar plastic garden hose splitter that has 3/4" GHT (garden hose thread) that was two valves on it (best of both worlds). I also bought the appropriate barbs to fit into it (so hosing can attach). Because I wanted to put this is my AquaForestAquarium Archaea cabinet, everything is packed really tight. Would be nicer if tubing had more room to move and didn't kink as easily. Just a tradeoff so you see I had to use elbow barbs and keep some tubing real short.

My fittings right now are brass but I found one seller on ebay (shipped from China) that has G 1/4" male thread to 5/8" barb in STAINLESS STEEL. However, it is BSPT (british standard pipe thread) so this one tapers inwards and will probably need teflon/very tight twist to seal with the o-ring. BSPT fitting can go into a BSPP threaded hole, but BSPP cannot go into BSPT. Someone correct me if I'm wrong about that, but I'm fairly certain that is the case.

If you've read to this point, I think this should be enough to understand what you can do with this PC cooling reservoir. It has limitations size wise and a need for a bypass if you don't want to slow the flow on your tank too much (depending on your filter), but it really is a nice cheap option that we can use for our hobby.

Please correct or question me anywhere!!!

--------------------------------------------

Just links to what I bought for anyone curious. I hope links are allowed. I don't have any commission to these. Just purely for info on what I have.

You can buy these for cheaper on AliExpress. I just didn't want to wait and paid a little more for the items. They're from the same supplier, but I also recommend finding a higher quality brand. The one I have is 50mm outer diameter. I think companies like Freezemod have higher quality ones, and they might be 60mm. Do your own research on this, I didn't do enough on this side.

Some other hard to find accessories:
- If you're trying to replace inlet cap, make sure the cap you find works. Here's one I found for 50mm diameter:
- I believe the acrylic reservoir itself is this (please check yourself!!):
- This one is super nice, it's a rotatable cap replacement you can get. Set your in/outlets exactly where you want. I'm not sure if 50 or 60mm diameter though:

I also mentioned not wanting to have to drill anything. You might wonder how to attach those brackets without doing so. I bought adhesive stickers with screw ports from AliExpress, and used screws/washers that came with the reservoir:

Can probably get on Amazon as well. The adhesive first, then stack 3 washers next, bracket next, thread the screw through the bracket hole -> washers -> adhesive screw port.



-------------------------------
Random thought:

I found this one singular option that I've not tested. It looks so similar to the internal bypass option that yugang himself devised. (a prebuilt option at least) It's slotted but to be honest, I don't know if it would work well. If you search for aluminum pc water cooling reservoir, you will find this. Only comes in one size unfortunately. Again, I have NOT tested this.

Several members of this forum have greatly contributed to testing the concept of Horizontal CO2 Reactor , and I am so happy that collectively we have succeeded to push some true innovation. @Unexpected successfully pioneered the first horizontal reactor on his bigger tank, was kind enough to call it ‘Yugang reactor’ and inspired several followers with that. Also to mention @RickyV who took CO2 injection to a new level with a 1000-gallon system, achieving a 1.0 pH drop in just 38 minutes. Thank you to all who have contributed, and I believe hobbyist will find most answers in the Horizontal CO2 Reactor thread on this forum and hopefully feel that CO2 is easier than it used to be with bubble reactors.

My journey started about 2 years ago, when I was doing some measurements and calculations on my bubble reactor and got to the idea of the CO2 Spray Bar. I built probably 10 versions / prototypes of CO2 Spray Bar, spent many days measuring pH profiles, so that I could share my insights with the community on UKAPS. The horizontal reactor is based on the physics principles of the CO2 Spray Bar, and test results are applicable to both. I was at the time so happy with my CO2 Spray Bar that I gave no priority to building the horizontal reactor and thanks again to @Unexpected for his initiative and courage. I am currently also using the horizontal reactor, but my love and in certain situations preference for CO2 Spray Bar remains.

I discovered this morning that both threads on CO2 Spray Bar and Horizontal CO2 reactor have now been removed by the UKAPS admins. This may have happened in the past few weeks, not sure as I am not a regular UKAPS visitor anymore. These threads represent probably several hundred hours work, aiming to be a lasting and valuable contribution to the hobby, lots of measurement data, comparisons and calculations, and many pages of posts from fellow hobbyists. Even posts in several journals featuring the CO2 Spray Bar or Horizontal Reactor have been deleted or edited by admins. Thumbs up to forum rules, but very few will disagree that these all stand or fall with forum governance and integrity to individual members as well as the community.

While having the Horizontal CO2 Reactor now well documented on this forum, I believe it is a loss for the hobby if we would lose the insights on CO2 Spray Bar. It offers the same performance as the Horizontal CO2 Reactor, can be made for perhaps 5-10 USD and one hour DIY work. When I have more time I may create a new thread on this forum, with similar detail as what was deleted in UKAPS, with various prototypes and measurements. For now I hope it is useful if I just post a quick summary.

The first prototype CO2 Spray Bar, as I was testing late 2021 / early 2022.









The CO2 Spray Bar in the front of the tank, was in my tank barely visible. In my 200 liter tank I used a transparent half pipe, and achieved 1.5 pH drop with very good stability. It is from the experiments with the Spray Bar that I took the 17.7 ratio for the calculation of Horizontal Reactor dimension.

Some forum members pushed back on the idea having anything in the front, so I started experimenting with CO2 Spray Bar in the back of the tank.





I hope the above pictures help to understand the CO2 Spray Bar, and perhaps inspire fellow hobbyists to try it in their tanks. Having a simple half-pipe in a tank is easier than building an inline horizontal CO2 reactor, and may be especially attractive for small tanks.

For any further questions or help, please post below or send me an PM. I may start a more detailed thread when I have a bit more time and/or see there is interest from fellow hobbyists.

Thank you for reading, and thank you to ScapeCrunch for giving us a good home for our hobby.

Hi guys!

I'm new here, but not entirely new to planted tanks though I've been out of the hobby for the better part of the last decade between kids and moving a couple of times - but finally in a spot where I can do something again. I'm mostly going to be making things up as I go along, but plan on a lot of automation (I want to integrate everything into home assistant) and a lot of DIY as I love the challenge of building things out myself.

The starting point:

I picked up a 90P rimless, low-iron tank on a great deal.



I have a rough idea in my head for a stand to be built from plywood - just have a couple other house projects to finish off before starting that built.

Wife says I can only have one aquarium, so for this tank, I want to go all out with a sump to allow for auto top off, and auto water changes, auto fertilizer dosing etc. etc. I have half a plan in my mind.

I've also started on the light fixture which I've modeled up in CAD, and plan on making out of an 8020 extrusion, and some 3D printed bits.

I'm using bridgelux gen 3 thrive CW (3000k) and WW (5000k) LED strips which have super high CRI at 98+ along with some specific XPE2 wavelengths that I'll solder onto some starboards. Far Red (730nm), Red (654nm), Cyan (495nm), Blue (455nm), Visible UV (415nm). Each segment of the white channels will be on its own driver so I can adjust left to right brightness in thirds, and each colour channel on its own driver so I can vary each channel on a time-based approach.

These will be run from a custom PCB board with Meanwell N-LDD drivers, and will run ESPHome on an ESP32 so it can link up with my Home Assistant installation.


That's it for now, this will probably be a very slow build so be warned if you follow along!

This is the future home for the announcements when someone obtains an achievement badge. Let the games begin!

Has anyone stopped using co2 in their tank?
i have a small 10g that I’ve been using co2 for about a year, somewhere around 25-30ppm.
My plants are nothing exotic; buce, anubias, rotala, some random mosses.
I’ll be in and out this summer, so I decided to shut off my regulator and half my fertilizer amounts. It’s been a week and no influx of algae or other negative effects yet.
I’m thinking I’ll stay co2 free, as none of my plants need it, and my shrimp are probably better off

Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @Lesser Snipe!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?

was travelling for the past 3 weeks, so this tank hasn't had any trimming, water changes, or maintenance.
Frankly, I'm liking this jungle look a bit more than my usually well-trimmed tank.

So I've been trying to recover this farm tank after having been neglected for a couple months after my injury. I had lost some plants which I could understand for obvious reasons. However it seems as though since I've resumed maintenance Its had a major negative impact on the tank. Since resuming water changes & Co2 injection I've had a major issue with plant melt: hygophila araguaia which had been decent has been completely wiped out, buces are shedding leaves at an alarming rate, lagenandra meeboldii green which was easily the largest plant in the tank is a shaddow of its former self and continues to decline, I attributed this melt as likely being a combination of factors:

A.) Aquarium had stopped being dosed with fertilizers and plants had become weak
B.) Co2 bottle had run dry and now suddenly Co2 injection had resumed.
C.) Lack of water changes caused the plants to use up or at least deplete available minerals which were not being replaced with each water change.

My theory was these factors combined with resuming maintenance, co2 injection, etc were drastic enough to cause a significant change in water parameters from what the plants had adapated to.

I had ordered some new plants to replace some that were lost, mostly tissue culture which is what I've had pretty great success with. However now many of these new plants are pretty much also instantly melting. Pogostemon helferi specifically, but also some some swords (echinodorus red diamond) being the hardest hit, but ozelot also struggling.

Nutrient dosing targets:
30mL dose provides
Macros
NO3 via KNO3 - 20ppm
P via KH2PO4 - 1.5ppm
K via KNO3+KH2PO4+K2SO4 - 20 ppm

Micros
Fe via CSM+B - 0.5ppm
Ferts are dosed 10mL at at the time 3x/ week on alternating days.

I use RO water and APT Sky+ to remineralize using the calculator on 2 Hr Aquarist website, and according to the calculator my dosages should put me around 7GH and 1.9KH.
I was going to check water hardness last night but my solution is expired so I need to pick up some more today just for verification purposes. While the tank SHOULD be somewhere in the neighborhood provided by the APT SKY+ when I tested KH (not expired) it tested at 4dKH . Lights are on for 7 hours per day, Co2 Injection begins 1.5 hours before lights on and shuts off 1 hour before lights off. pH is 7.4 and pH drop is approximately 1.2 using an apera pH meter (Tank has no inhabitants other than plants). Drop checker Green. TDS 225. I will add that the tank does start seeing some pretty decent ambient light from the room for several hours before lights on, so I'm not sure if this makes a difference. I'm skeptical because everything had been doing fine until the maintenance fell off during my injury, and the decline really accelerated once the water changes/ Co2 injection resumed. Its not everything in the tank, there are plants that bouncing back, the echinodorus Aflame, blyxa japonica, and crypt lucens all seem to be either doing fine or recovering with new growth. I'm at a complete loss, and by no means an expert, I would love any input, ideas, insights that you all could offer. TIA.