Yugang Reactor fills with air overtime?

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Dissolve more CO2 per minute than the horizontal one you've made? I'm not sure, there's no easy way to know/calculate. Horizontal reactors are pretty efficient, but they're large. You might get similar efficiency with a vertical reactor, as long as you get the larger size available.

 

[Yugang]

Dissolve more CO2 per minute than the horizontal one you've made? I'm not sure, there's no easy way to know/calculate. Horizontal reactors are pretty efficient, but they're large. You might get similar efficiency with a vertical reactor, as long as you get the larger size available.

Actually I made a pretty convincing estimation in the main thread that a horizontal reactor will almost always be much more powerful than a vertical bubble reactor of same size.

The argument goes as follows. We calculate the water CO2 interface of a given size horizontal reactor. Then we would calculate how many bubbles we would need in a vertical reactor of same size, to provide the same interface and hence same CO2 absorption rate. The conclusion is a much higher number of bubbles than we usually see in any vertical reactor.

Hence, theoretically a vertical reactor could push equivalent flow of CO2, however in almost all practical cases it will be much less than the equivalent size horizontal reactor.

The relevant post with actual numbers is in the main thread.

Post in thread 'Horizontal CO2 Reactor - Yugang 鱼缸 Reactor'

Aug 9, 2023

Please do for the benefit of the members here.

So let’s have a look at the estimated CO2 absorption power of a vertical bubble reactor, compared to a pipe with same dimensions but then used as a horizontal reactor. The key point is that it is very plausible that the horizontal reactor gives a higher CO2 absorption surface, and that a simplified model will suffice to illustrate that.

If we would like to make an accurate measurement of the absorption surface of a vertical bubble reactor, we could take a couple of photos and for each photo account for the number of bubbles and...

• Yugang

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[Unexpected]

"It's normal for the reactor to not fill with water overnight. All reactors will reach this equilibrium at some point; it's the reason we build our reactors to accommodate this! The overflow purging of gasses is an important part of these reactors. Either they need to be built to automatically purge gasses (at the cost of wasting a bit of extra CO2 to do so) or you will need to manually purge your reactor 1-2 times per week. Unfortunately this is just the chemistry and physics of gasses in these scenarios at play, there's no solution to prevent it from happening entirely!"

Thanks for your informed reply.
I'm trying to inject more CO2 into my tank & my reactor starts to overflow earlier than I'd like - at about 2 bubbles per second. Am I correct in that the amount of CO2 able to be injected is proportional to the size of the reactor?? If that's the case, then the reactor becomes too large for my situation.
So would a vertical reactor which doesn't rely on the surface area, but rather the mixing of the gas with water, such as the 'Ista" or the "Sera" be better suited, as they claim to mix all the injected CO2 into the tank?

No, and why pay for them when you can build the reactor cheap to the correct size. You can also tilt the reactor to slow down over flow mode.

 

[Yugang]

Vertical reactors run into the exact same issue (they fill with O2/N2 gasses over time to a certain level).

This is very true. It is basic physics, essentially Henry's law, when pure CO2 gas (either in bubbles or a CO2 pocket in a horizontal reactor) strives for equilibrium with aquarium water.

For anyone interested in the more detailed science, have a look at

Post in thread 'Horizontal CO2 Reactor - Yugang 鱼缸 Reactor'

Oct 8, 2023

Context

As described earlier, we could operate the reactor in three different ways

• Using a pH/CO2 controller for CO2 injection and stability
• Using a precision CO2 regulator to precisely adjust CO2 injection
• Overflow mode.

Most current users are either using a pH/CO2 controller or a precision CO2 regulator. There will be a reservoir of almost pure CO2 gas in the reactor, and the physics/chemistry of CO2 absorption into the water will be similar to any other reactor that may or may not use CO2 bubbles. As is also the case in bubble reactors, gradually we...

• Yugang

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While this "back diffusion" happens in horizontal reactors as well as vertical bubble reactors, only a horizontal reactor can purge automatically. Any vertical reactor will gradually build up gas, gases diffusing from water into CO2 bubbles, and needs to be manually purged.

 

[sootshe]

Well, from my experiments, the horizontal reactor that I built is simply just not large enough to do the job & I don't have the space to make it any larger. The size that I have just won't diffuse enough CO2 before it goes into overflow mode.

I purchased a Sera vertical reactor & I have to say that I'm very pleased with it. I've only had it running for 4 days but so far no problems & it doesn't fill up with gas that I need to purge & completely dissolves the CO2 into the tank at a much higher level than the vertical reactor.

It is the 1000 model & I run it with a 420LPH powerhead direct into the reactor, which drives the turbines easily.

Very happy with this setup.


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