# diy co2 reactor/heater



## Garuf (11 Nov 2007)

would this work?
and how much would it effect flow? 
the plan is to use my eden 501 which has 10mm tubing split it and run each end into a chamber, in one chamber "bio-balls" to act as a co2 diffuser and in the second one a 100watt heater which would act as an external heater effectively removing all but the inlet/outlets out of the tank.
I prepose to use 2inch tubing how much would this effect the flow and would re joining the 2 chambers at the top with the same 10mm tubing rectify any flow issues and mean I wouldn't lose any flow?


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## Ed Seeley (11 Nov 2007)

I've just got a couple of questions/observations.
How are you going to seal around the top of the heater?  Sealing the glass to plastic will be rather tricky to make watertight.
Personally I'd make a simple CO2 reactor with 10mm inlets and outlets and use a commercial inline heater.
If you really want to make your own inline heater, I'd make it as a separate unit and you could just mount them in series rather than in parrallel as it will involve a lot less fittings and all the water from the filter will pass through both with every pass through the filter.

The only problem to all this may be that I don't think the Eden filters are that powerful and you might lose too much flow fitting either of these to the filter!


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## Tom (11 Nov 2007)

I'd imagine you would lose quite a bit of flow from the splits in the pipe. Rejoining the pipes might slow it down further though. Looks like a good plan otherwise. 

EDIT: as Ed says, putting them in series would make it more efficient

Tom


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## Garuf (11 Nov 2007)

I planned to seal the heater using silicone sealant, I was under the impression that flow wouldn't be effected if they rejoin, the same amount of water would still be going through the same diameter pipe and so the pressure would be the same and leave the flow unaffected.
I'll bare in mind what was said about keeping it in line the main reason for doing it this way was I didn't want any air bubbles building up in the heater chamber.


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## Ed Seeley (11 Nov 2007)

Garuf said:
			
		

> I planned to seal the heater using silicone sealant, I was under the impression that flow wouldn't be effected if they rejoin, the same amount of water would still be going through the same diameter pipe and so the pressure would be the same and leave the flow unaffected.
> I'll bare in mind what was said about keeping it in line the main reason for doing it this way was I didn't want any air bubbles building up in the heater chamber.



Silicone sealant won't bond very well to plastic.  After a while it can peel away if there is any movement.

I was thinking about doing something similar for my nano cube to get the heater out of the tank and reckoned in the end that the best bet was to have an open tube that the heater sat in at the back of the cube so the water then flowed by gravity back into the tank.  That would eliminate any bubble and sealing troubles.

As far as the flow rate and splitting the flow goes it will reduce the pressure on each side, but the tee piece itself will create resistance as the water hits the top of the T.  You'd reduce the back-pressure more effectively by going to a larger diameter pipe for a longer length.  

You could have a U-shaped piece of 2" pipe with the water inlet at the top of the U.  The first part where the water flows down would be the CO2 reactor filled with Bioballs and then the water flows round the bend and up into the heater section which has the outlet pipe positioned near the top to return to the tank.  Only problem is of course that you'd have this big pipework thing on the back of your tank rather than a heater and CO2 diffuser in the tank!  I'm not sure which would be worse, which is why I haven't built one yet!!!!


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