My rotatable Yugang reactor concept

[Marwen]

Recently I have finally decided to build and test my first horizontal Yugang CO2 reactor (see this thread by Mr. Yugang for those not yet familiar with it).

For the reactor dimensions, I have simply followed @Yugang's recommendations to calculate the dimensions suitable for my tank.

I also wanted to bring my own twist to it: An idea I've had for being able to do fine adjustments to CO2 levels by simply rotating the reactor.

The illustrations below will best explain how this works as well as my test results with my own tank and filter flow rate:




Notice how in all settings, the CO2 inlet is never submerged in water.

A couple of parameters to note:

• My surface agitation is moderately high + a skimmer. Water temperature has been 27°C (80°F).
• I am using the reactor in overflow mode (see the aforementioned thread for more on what that means). I have the CO2 injection rate set (using my needle valve evidently) to where the reactor burps out of the outlet a couple of small bubbles of CO2 every 2-3 minutes.

Unfortunately I did not take photos of the building process since I did not know I'll be sharing it. But there is not much to it: it's all done using the regular PVC piple/fitting components used to build a Rex Riggs CO2 reactor. What really matters is calculating the 3 water surface sizes above based on how much you choose to offset your in/out fittings from the center of the pipe, which in turn depends on how adjustable you want it to be.

The reactor can be attached to the cabinet using a couple of any regular PVC pipe clamps that fit your reactor's diameter size. These can be loosened a bit to rotate the reactor when initially fine-tuning CO2.



Obviously, in my case, if I were to adjust the reactor's length and bring the in/out fittings more to the outside, it could allow me to adjust CO2 drop between, say, 1 and 1.5-1.6, which would be very neat. But I'm happy with how it turned out because I could easily set it to my preferred 1.4 pH drop.

My impressions after using this for a month now:

Wow! I now consider this to be the best method to inject CO2 in my tank due to these advantages:

1. The CO2 level stability has been great. No need for a very high-end needle valve (I use a mid-range one) since it tolerates some tiny needle valve drifting thanks to the overflow feature: the water-CO2 contact surface area is always the same.
2. Totally silent! (The small burps that I have it set to let out are barely audible.) I will never go back to Cerges or Rex Riggs reactors just for the silence factor.
3. The couple of small bubbles that I have it set to push out every few minutes serve a couple of nice purposes: It lets me know that the reactor is fully operational as intended. If I don't see them, then I know something is wrong with the CO2 system (like the gas tank has ran out, I no longer need to keep a drop checker just for this, or to keep checking the CO2 gauges inside the cabinet).
4. Safety in case of accidental high injection rate (such as an End of Tank dump event with single stage regulators, or broken needle valve). I have put this feature to the test by opening the needle valve and letting the CO2 gas rush into the reactor and bubble out of the reactor into the tank intensely. After a few hours, all the fish were gasping at the surface, but no fatalities. Okay, maybe it's not 100% safe for everyone (depending on things like surface agitation) and I was watching things closely when I did that test. But I'm pretty sure it adds a safety buffer at least, because if I were to do that with, say, an in-tank or inline diffuser or a big enough vertical reactor, the fish wouldn't be near the surface for hours but rather dead. So I'd say it improves the safety and definitely gives you more time to save the fish in case of such an event compared to the other injection methods.
5. Zero maintenance (compared to diffusers or non-empty reactors that is).

Conclusion:

If you think about it, there hasn't been many true innovations when it comes to the fundamentals of the hobby for many years now (after we discount some "snake oily" product out there of course). All of the light, CO2, filtration, soil and fertilizer products have been operating on the same principles that have been around and known for many years now. Just with different colors, brands and experiences of how to use them.

If we take CO2 for instance, all of the injection methods relied on making CO2 bubbles inside the water. The idea that we do not need bubbles (which can be either unsightly or noisy) in the first place to reach CO2 saturation and superior stability so easily in high tech tanks is brilliant and makes me think "why haven't I thought of THAT before?". I think it is the future of CO2 reactors/injection and warrants more testing and adopting by more aquarists and new ideas for how to best standardize it in the future.

Thank you to @Yugang for this.

Let me know what you guys think about my idea.

 

[Marwen]

Some shots of the tank taken throughout the 3-4 weeks of this experiment.

Plants dealt relatively ok with the fluctuating CO2 levels over these last few weeks of playing with this new reactor concept. I'll clean up and rearrange some things on the weekend, let it stabilize even more now and share a proper photo in 2 weeks or so of the tank fully grown using this reactor.

(Notice adding some little things like HC cuba to see how it reacts since I like to use it as a CO2 indicator plant furthest from the light. I'll grab some other things from my emersed farm to see how they do. Maybe some Chai and white Ludwigias.)






Side note: In the last picture (taken today) notice the yellowing in the macrandra compared to previous photos. That was because I completely messed up my micros solution and triggered a micros issue a few days ago expressed as almost fully yellow small newest leaves. But it's fixed now. Actually, a sign of good CO2 is how quickly plants bounce right back after you cause an issue and then fix it. I'm talking two days tops to see it make new red leaves and go right back to growing. A good indicator plant for all things micros IME.

 

[RickyV]

Safety in case of accidental high injection rate (such as an End of Tank dump event with single stage regulators, or broken needle valve). I have put this feature to the test by opening the needle valve and letting the CO2 gas rush into the reactor and bubble out of the reactor into the tank intensely. After a few hours, all the fish were gasping at the surface, but no fatalities

On my reactor I have a purge valve at the end of it, I need to experiment with adding a line to it and feed it back into the sump and leave it open all the time. This way in case of failure any extra CO2 will go straight into the air instead of making contact with the tank water.

 

[Marwen]

On my reactor I have a purge valve at the end of it, I need to experiment with adding a line to it and feed it back into the sump and leave it open all the time. This way in case of failure any extra CO2 will go straight into the air instead of making contact with the tank water.

I tried doing that in the past, except I ran it back into the water hose that feeds into the (Rex Riggs) reactor. A venturi loop kinda thing. What happens is when a gas pocket builds up at the top of the reactor with enough pressure, it pushes gas back into the water flow and keeps circulating it like that breaking it down into bubbles instead of having it sit there as a gas pocket.

Feeding yours into the sump, unless the sump is covered (minimizing gas escape from the system), you'd be loosing gas and will probably find that you'll need to increase your injection rate to compensate. (Since the built-up gas pocket does contribute to dissolving CO2. Albeit not enough by itself alone since its not a big enough contact area, hence the Yugang reactor idea.)

 

[Marwen]

Another advantage to Yugang reactors that was missing from regular reactors (namely commercially sold ones) is having a standard/universal way to measure the size of reactor needed per tank size category. I.e. calculated based on tank surface area.

It's still not very precise due to other variables at play (namely the user's flow rate and surface agitation that do influence CO2 degassing besides surface area), but it brings the estimation close enough to be sure enough of the reactor working for the user. Contrary to other commercial reactors which are really hit and miss for most folks/non-DIYers because of the total lack of such a straightforward sizing measure.

This opens the door to commercialize reactor solutions that non-DIYer hobbyists can use and tune easily without much failure or trial and error. So I really hope to see them commercialized more in the future.

 

[HardeeParty]

Pictures of the reactor or it didn’t happen.

 

[Yugang]

Thank you for your testing, and your insights @Marwen

I also like the continuous adjustment by rotation a lot, started doing that with the rotatable end piece on CO2 Spray Bar CO2 Spray Bar, and we also implemented it in the commercial version from AquaRocks Colorado.

It may be helpful to give some further illustrations how the reactor adjustment works, from private communications with AquaRocks Colorado, but not posted on any forum.



With the low inlet position, we have the water flowing into the water reservoir, and minimise noise and splashing at higher water flows. The asymmetric water exit, as you say is useful to adjust power.

I helped AquaRocks Colorado to calculate so that the user could have a 50% adjustment, from minimum to maximum. So here is the very simple geometry calculation





With a 50% reduction of reactor power, as above, we will have 50% less injection, which would account for 50% losses by account of outgassing in the tank, and would therefore stabilise at about 50% less CO2 ppm.

This opens the door to commercialize reactor solutions that non-DIYer hobbyists can use and tune easily without much failure or trial and error. So I really hope to see them commercialized more in the future.

They are!

 

[Yugang]

Safety in case of accidental high injection rate (such as an End of Tank dump event with single stage regulators, or broken needle valve). I have put this feature to the test by opening the needle valve and letting the CO2 gas rush into the reactor and bubble out of the reactor into the tank intensely. After a few hours, all the fish were gasping at the surface, but no fatalities. Okay, maybe it's not 100% safe for everyone (depending on things like surface agitation) and I was watching things closely when I did that test. But I'm pretty sure it adds a safety buffer at least, because if I were to do that with, say, an in-tank or inline diffuser or a big enough vertical reactor, the fish wouldn't be near the surface for hours but rather dead. So I'd say it improves the safety and definitely gives you more time to save the fish in case of such an event compared to the other injection methods.

This depends a bit on the user's choices when building a reactor.

Some users prefer to use a precision regulator or CO2 controller for CO2 stabilisation, and want the reactor to just be powerful enough. @RickyV pushes his 1000 gallon system to target in about half an hour, or we could design the reactor to do it in 15 minutes if he wants. Injecting too much CO2 in such reactor, on purpose or accidentally with end of tank dump, will not be a good experience.

I am pretty sure however that more and more users will calculate their reactor for overflow mode, ie the reactor stabilises the injection rate rather than the regulator or controller. In overflow mode, any excess CO2 injected will be purged, and there will be no impact on CO2 ppm at all. Therefore I consider overflow mode inherently safe, no compromise. We could compromise however to design the reactor for a 1.5 pH drop maximum, safe for fish, but on a day to day basis use the regulator to inject and set a 1.2 pH drop. An end of tank dump will then increase CO2 ppm and the fish may notice it, but it will not exceed what most (assuming sufficient O2 in the tank) consider safe.

 

[Marwen]

Holy smokes @Yugang that thing looks like it couldn't have been made better! Looks like something ADA would have designed and sold for multiple times the price. (If they weren't still stuck at the same old in-tank diffuser technology last I checked.)

I'd order one if I didn't live so far from the US.

Oh and here I thought the rotatability feature was something new. Glad you guys had thought of it AND rolled it out as part of the design!

Kudos to Aqua Rocks Colorado for going through with your reactor design. Highly recommended to all my aquarist friends as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Yugang]

I'd order one if I didn't live so far from the US.

If I understand correctly they don't have a distributor in Europe yet. So anyone interested .....

 

[Zeus.]

They are!

That's a very reasonable price IMO. I would try/use one at that price if I had a high tech tank. The trouble is the target costumer's are in a very niche hobby
Looks a very solid design, impressed. what's its dimension's ?

 

[Kwyet]

I’m so glad you posted this! I recently bought one of these, but there were no directions included at all. I’m going to try to install it on my 68 gallon this week. It’s so cool that the inventor is on this forum too!

 

[Yugang]

That's a very reasonable price IMO. I would try/use one at that price if I had a high tech tank. The trouble is the target costumer's are in a very niche hobby
Looks a very solid design, impressed. what's its dimension's ?

Note: I helped Aqua Rocks Colorado with calculations and design, as I am happy to help any hobbyists or manufacturer, but I have no commercial interest in their business, nor did I ask or receive any compensation. The commercialisation of the product is entirely their responsibility.

The size is published on their internet site

CO2 Regulators and Accessories

CO2 Regulators and Accessories

aquarockscolorado.com

I’m so glad you posted this! I recently bought one of these, but there were no directions included at all. I’m going to try to install it on my 68 gallon this week. It’s so cool that the inventor is on this forum too!

If any need for help, send me a PM @Kwyet . It's all in the reactor thread, but I would agree that for a commercial product it would be good to have a separate instruction.

 

[Kwyet]

Note: I helped Aqua Rocks Colorado with calculations and design, as I am happy to help any hobbyists or manufacturer, but I have no commercial interest in their business, nor did I ask or receive any compensation. The commercialisation of the product is entirely their responsibility.

The size is published on their internet site

View attachment 6084

CO2 Regulators and Accessories

CO2 Regulators and Accessories

aquarockscolorado.com

If any need for help, send me a PM @Kwyet . It's all in the reactor thread, but I would agree that for a commercial product it would be good to have a separate instruction.

Thanks very much!

 

[Kwyet]

Well, I’m sorry to report that the Aquarocks Colorado stainless steel version does not allow for rotation of the end piece. They told me it’s all one welded piece. I did get mine set up, and it definitely works well except for a very tiny leak (about a teaspoon per day) from where one of the hose connectors screws in to the end. They recommended a different kind of Teflon tape, so I’ll look for that tomorrow.

 

[Yugang]

Well, I’m sorry to report that the Aquarocks Colorado stainless steel version does not allow for rotation of the end piece. They told me it’s all one welded piece. I did get mine set up, and it definitely works well except for a very tiny leak (about a teaspoon per day) from where one of the hose connectors screws in to the end. They recommended a different kind of Teflon tape, so I’ll look for that tomorrow.

I checked with AquaRocks Colorado, and there seems to be a misunderstanding here. They will follow up with you tomorrow.

 

[Kwyet]

He just texted me. I do think we misunderstood each other. Apparently, the end cap DOES come off and rotate, but he doesn’t have extra end caps to send. The cap and the outlet are one welded piece and that’s what he was referring to. To be clear, he did offer to replace the whole thing for me, but I said I didn’t want that because it was already set up and it would be hard to send that back and wait for a new one. I don’t even have enough tubing to reconnect the filter (fx4) to the lily pipes while I’m waiting. I’m very sorry! I wasn’t trying to bash the product at all, just reporting what I was told as I understood it. He’s also offering to open a new package up and replace the end cap from that, but I’ve said I don’t want to until I’ve tried out the Teflon he suggested.
Once again, I’m so sorry!