DIY Yugang Reactor

justinstewart

justinstewart

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I'm tired of all the micro bubbles in my tank and after reading about @Yugang 's horizontal reactor, I figured I need to try it.

Tank
Width: 457.2 mm (18")
Length: 457.2 mm (18")

Surface Area 209,031.8 mm
/17.7 (Yugang's Magic Number)
Need 11,809 mm area

Acrylic Pipe
54mm diameter (2 and 1/8")
254mm length (10")

54×254 = 13,716mm

Am I calculating this correctly?

My pipe is a little too long, going to try as is and see what happens.

Please don't laugh, I took the lids off two playdough containers and snapped them onto the pipe. Cut up some old threaded elbow fittings and stuck them through. This sits on top of the AIO chamber so not too worried about leaks, trying for a proof of concept. I have a 100 gph pump>co2>elbow into pipe. Then output cap hole is off center and just connects to another elbow.

Filled and ready to go. Going to give it a shot tomorrow.

20241015_223510.jpg
 
justinstewart said:
Am I calculating this correctly?
Click to expand...
Your calculations look ok. Please note that the 17.7 ratio is for an estimated 1.5 pH drop, and you have some margin as your surface area is even a bit more than calculated. For a 1.2 pH drop, if you would prefer that, a 50% smaller reactor would be sufficient.

My reactor is acrylic as well, and I have not figured out what glue is best for acrylic to pvc. I am using teflon tape instead, which makes it also easier to disassemble and adjust when necessary.

@justinstewart , good luck with your build and do let me know if there is any help or advice I can give.
 
Last edited:
Yugang said:
My reactor is acrylic as well, and I have not figured out what glue is best for acrylic to pvc.
Click to expand...
Have you tried 3M 5200 Marine sealant? It now comes in a fast cure variety that doesn’t take days to cure indoors. The only down side is the 5200 is EXPENSIVE per tube and it NEVER comes off. 3M makes a less tenacious version of this sealant, it’s 3M 4200 which might worth a shot.

I have use the 5200 for a lot of boat projects and it works very well. I have a pair of deep cycle batteries strapped to a plate that is sealed to the hull with 5200 for over 10 years now and it hasn’t budged. It takes a beating too at 20+ mph in 3-4 foot waves. This was fiberglass to ABS sealing so not exactly a direct comparison to PVC to acrylic. Based on the published tech data the shear strength to ABS is basically the same for acrylic.

5200 tech data
 
justinstewart said:
I'm tired of all the micro bubbles in my tank and after reading about @Yugang 's horizontal reactor, I figured I need to try it.

Tank
Width: 457.2 mm (18")
Length: 457.2 mm (18")

Surface Area 209,031.8 mm
/17.7 (Yugang's Magic Number)
Need 11,809 mm area

Acrylic Pipe
54mm diameter (2 and 1/8")
254mm length (10")

54×254 = 13,716mm

Am I calculating this correctly?

My pipe is a little too long, going to try as is and see what happens.

Please don't laugh, I took the lids off two playdough containers and snapped them onto the pipe. Cut up some old threaded elbow fittings and stuck them through. This sits on top of the AIO chamber so not too worried about leaks, trying for a proof of concept. I have a 100 gph pump>co2>elbow into pipe. Then output cap hole is off center and just connects to another elbow.

Filled and ready to go. Going to give it a shot tomorrow.

View attachment 6176
Click to expand...
Looks great and very inventive! Love it!

Let us know how this works once you get it running.
 
Nice! Don’t sweat the play dough tops. Pretty much everything I’ve DIY made as a proof of concept has been from crap just laying around.

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t there need to be an air pocket in the chamber for the gas exchange in order for it to work? It looks like your reactor chamber is completely full.

I’m asking because I have all the pvc parts ready to assemble my own but this is making me second guess my understanding.
 
Jhardee85 said:
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t there need to be an air pocket in the chamber for the gas exchange in order for it to work?
Click to expand...
Correct, you need a gas pocket with CO2, so that the CO2 can absorb into the water through the water / gas pocket interface.

Most efficient would be a pure CO2 in the gas pocket, but even if it is initially filled with air (as you write) CO2 will build up and the reactor will work without any problem.
 
Yeah, you can inject right into the chamber. I didnt want to drill holes in the reactor pipe yet, so I'm injecting into the supply line. The co2 bubbles just go right into the reactor pipe.
 
The reactor worked great today! No bubbles in the tank. It's kinda fun to watch the co2 bubble grow in the reactor. Also, I got overflow working well. The off center hole in the return works perfectly, I can just dial it right where I want it. I can see the extra gas coming out occasionally. Thanks @Yugang!

I do have one question for you. The gas pocket is still there in the reactor even though the co2 has been off for an hour and a half. Should I purge it? I was hoping the pipe would completely fill up with water again. Its fun to watch the co2 build up...
 
justinstewart said:
I do have one question for you. The gas pocket is still there in the reactor even though the co2 has been off for an hour and a half. Should I purge it? I was hoping the pipe would completely fill up with water again. Its fun to watch the co2 build up...
Click to expand...
This is a very interesting subject, and the short answer is 'don't worry, the reactor will take care and purge itself'

Perhaps I should write a longer post in the reactor thread, but let me summarise here for anyone interested in the more detailed workings. As described in the post Horizontal CO2 Reactor - Yugang 鱼缸 Reactor some gases will diffuse back from the water into the gas packet. This is the remaining gas that you see when the CO2 is turned off, and a rather small gas pocket remains that will not be dissolved. This is essentially some nitrogen and oxygen gas, that diffused back aiming for equilibrium as per Henry's law.

When we start with a reactor filled with water, then turn on enough CO2 flow to reach overflow and turn off CO2 again, we see the CO2 pocket nearly completely disappear in about 20-30 minutes. A really small gas pocket remains, perhaps 3-5% of the full gas pocket volume, this is the result of gases diffusing back.

Compare that with a situation that we start with a water filled tube, and slowly add CO2 so that the reactor never reaches overflow. This is like a more conventional reactor operation, where the rate of injection is set by the CO2 regulator and not by overflow mode. When we operate this for a longer period, we have no overflow and no purging from the reactor, and this gives nitrogen and oxygen more time to diffuse back from water into the gas pocket. If we now turn off the CO2 injection, we will notice after an hour or so a larger pocket of gases to remain in the reactor as compared to the experiment described above.

I am using the size of the remaining gas pocket after CO2 is turned of as a measure for the optimisation of overflow mode. Ideally I'd like to see a small remaining gas pocket, say 5% of half tube volume. If the pocket is larger than that, I give a bit more injection for overflow mode, so that the stability will be at its best as described in the post mentioned above.

For most, if not all of us, it is not essential to understand the above and many users are already using overflow mode without this level of fine-tuning. I just wanted to be sure that I fully understand the physics of this reactor, and especially how we can use overflow mode to stabilise CO2 ppm.
 
I've worked with various sizes of reactors and CO2 Spray Bar, both working on the same principles, and this is how I set them up for overflow mode.

  • Start with reactor full with water, and inject CO2. We know that gas pocket will now be 100% pure CO2, as there has not been sufficient time for other gases to diffuse back.
  • Inject plenty of CO2 so that the reactor fills fully, and bubbles start escaping.
  • Not strictly necessary, but nice to do, is to dial back CO2 injection until just a very little CO2 escapes from the overflow. I like to take note of the bubbles per second injection rate, as this is a measure of the reactor strength in overflow mode.
  • Now I would increase injection a bit so that in overflow mode I see about once a minute a small bubble escape from the overflow. This is usually a good compromise between CO2 ppm stability in overflow mode, with at the same time minimum CO2 consumption losses.
  • From this optimised setting, when CO2 is turned off we should see only a small pocket of gas remaining after an hour or so and all CO2 has been absorbed.
  • If the remaining gas pocket is significant larger, say 20% or so, I would increase injection a bit as that helps for the best CO2 stability. After this increase, remaining gas pocket should be something like 5% of half reactor volume.
I don't own an pH probe anymore, and just do a regular check on -1- my drop checker, -2- one bubble or so per minute escaping through overflow and -3- the size of the remaining gas pocket. Hardly ever do I have to adjust my CO2 injection, even though my regulator is not very good and not very stable. Overflow mode works really well is my experience.
 
Reactor is working great.

Made one change, which made a big difference. I was injecting co2 into the inlet pipe. At the end of the day, I had a reactor half full of air that wouldnt clear.

I drilled a hole in the intake endcap and fed the co2 into the reactor itself and now the reactor pushes out the non co2 gasses much better. Its working as @Yugang mentioned above.

Its working great, I dont even think about co2 anymore. Thanks Yugang!
 

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