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Adventures with horizontal "Yugang" CO2 reactors!

Really happy to be back and contribute again. Thank you to the new moderation team.

I believe several members of the community understand the reactor quite well, and are giving support. If needed I will assist and help fellow hobbyists.
I will also gradually add latest insights on the physics and operation of the reactor here, this will take some time please bear with me.
 
Yugang said:
Really happy to be back and contribute again. Thank you to the new moderation team.
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Great to see you back @Yugang ! Cudos to the team for enabling your return.

Personally I am not as active as I used to be - which is not related to the forum at all. Due to work I barely have time to maintain my tanks, but they are doing okey.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Welcome Back Yugang. I've been working on plans for my own Yugang Style reactor feeding back from a sump to a main tank.

A pair of These, either side of this sight glass connected with parts of a 25cm section of 110mm pvc pipe with a co2 push fit bulkhead in the pipe upstream side. With fittings and pvc cement I reckon less than £50 for C. 80cm of reactor that I can see the water level in to see how my CO2's doing.

Do you think I'll need a bypass or can the whole return flow go through the yugang?
 
LightingBamboozled said:
Welcome Back Yugang. I've been working on plans for my own Yugang Style reactor feeding back from a sump to a main tank.

A pair of These, either side of this sight glass connected with parts of a 25cm section of 110mm pvc pipe with a co2 push fit bulkhead in the pipe upstream side. With fittings and pvc cement I reckon less than £50 for C. 80cm of reactor that I can see the water level in to see how my CO2's doing.

Do you think I'll need a bypass or can the whole return flow go through the yugang?
Click to expand...
The sight glass looks really great!
I am buying acrylic in HK, for around 5 GBP, but it may not be available everywhere. I don't glue the acrylic, but it has a tight fit with teflon tape so that I can easily disassemble and mount a different size of acrylic if I want to.

I am using a bypass, but I believe the vast majority of users does not and I never heard of any trouble with that. The reactor will work with any water flow, and virtually independent of water flow, as long as the water is not stagnant.

I see two (small) advantages with the bypass:
  • With high water flows, depending on the internal design of the water inlet in the reactor, there may be some water splashing that could cause some noise. To further reduce the risk this happening, without having a bypass, we could use a 45 degree "elbow" that directs the incoming water slightly down into the water on the lower half of the reactor. Overall it seems a small problem, unlikely, and only significant in case of a really strong flow in a relatively small reactor.
  • In overflow mode I prefer to have only a few miniscule CO2 bubbles escape from the reactor, perhaps once or twice per minute. This minimises CO2 losses, while maximum CO2 injection stability. In the case of big waves and lots of turbulence in the reactor it is more likely that the waves push out larger bubbles and reduce the efficiency on CO2 consumption a bit. Also this seems more the argument of a perfectionists, rather than a real significant concern.

If any further question, I am happy to help and please reach out by PM.
 
LightingBamboozled said:
less than £50
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I built a reactor for 6 USD in total material costs and about 1 hour DYI, with the components below.

1745460763355.png

It has an internal bypass, and is very compact for building in the tank cabinet.

In overflow mode stabilised around 1.2-1.3 pH drop, drop checker beyond lime green, on my 50 gallon / 200 litre tank.

1745460958258.png
 
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