sugar and yeast mix....smell?

I can understand you not knowing what it is, but you should know what it does... it helps count bubbles.

Check this out: http://www.petsmart.com/products/product_33004.shtml

The bubble counter is the gray thing in the middle with the two black suction cups at the top. CO2 enters from the bottom and floats up the series of stair steps until it is released at the top. This not only helps you count the number of bubbles your CO2 is putting out, but it increases the length of time the CO2 is exposed to water and thereby helps it dissolve. It's not as efficient as a CO2 diffuser, but it works ok.
 
I was actually thinking about buying that instead of making it all myself.

If you have to count the bubbles, when are you supposed to stop? Don the bubbles just keep on coming out?
 
If you are trying to measure something your measurementhas to be relative to something. In this case it is relative to time. So you may want to measure how many bubbles come out per minute or per second.

That Hagen thing is basically the same as a 2 liter bottle. It is a chamber where the yeast/sugar reaction occurs... nothing more. It is better looking than a Pepsi bottle, but IMO any hardware is unattractive.

Save your $ and DIY. It's very simple to modify a 2 ltr bottle & cap. Just drill a hole in the cap, shove some tubing in there and seal it and you're done. There's nothing special about it.
 
Collect parts or buy the Hagen

parts for the DIY

generator:
bottle - 2L soda or 2L juice
drill with small bits
sealant - several in case one fails
alcohol - to clean surfaces before sealing
6 ft silicone tubing ($8)
small bottle for bubble counter

reactor:
pump or powerhead ($10) or the filter in or output
large cylinder, clear (found item)
filter sponge, bioballs or scrubbie ($2 scrubbie, had filter sponges)
sealant ($8 aquarium sealant bought, had Liquid Nails on hand when that failed)
maybe airstone, maybe not ($1 for 2)

Or filter to feed bubbles into that won't lock up and actually does a good enough job. I'm not comfortable that this won't damage parts so I won't do that.

If you have all that laying around, make it. If you don't have that accumulation of aquarium junk yet, buying all the bits and parts is going to be a bit of $ and a lot of running around by the time you are through.

I spent as shown above to build the DIY for the 29 gallon. The Hagen at $20 was slightly cheaper, not much. But it never leaks, never siphons. I have both, I like both, both work, for nearly the same cost, one is a whole lot easier and actually more adjustable for the small tank in that you can turn it down but you can't turn it up for the larger tank.

Now that I have more junk accumulated, I could build one for nothing out-of-pocket. If (when) I set up another 10 or 20 gallon, I'll buy a Hagen for it probably, just tacking it onto the next online purchase. For 30 to 40 gallons, I'd DIY.
 
Originally posted by Andy16
If you have to count the bubbles, when are you supposed to stop? Don the bubbles just keep on coming out?
Click to expand...

LOL!
 
oops, no bubble counter, sorry

Hmm, somebody help, we need a photo of a bubble counter.

that great treatise on CO2 by laSeur or something like that that was located at the corydoras site is gone, won't come up.

I can'tt think of any other sites that show a bubble counter.

I'll describe mine; A small glass soda bottle with 2 holes drilled in the top, water in it, one airline goes into the water the other does not.

The input line comes from the CO2 generator and goes into the bottle about 1 1/2 inches below the surface of the water in the bottle. The gas bubbles through the water and leaves the bottle from the second line that is above the water level.

I can see the bubble rise and count how fast they are going. If it is 20 per minute, that might be too much, if it is 3 per minute that is too little. In between is OK. It has a rather steady decline so I can decide when I need to change the bottle.
 
photo of bubble counter

Aquabotanic store - Aquamedic bubble counter (need to clink on CO2 systems on left and then scroll down to go to the parts I want you to see)

this one seems to be set up for the glass to be on the bottom, full of water, as I described, the long tube is the input, the bubbles rise through the water and exit out a short tube, not really seen in this photo, just imagine the glass about half full of water.

Mine is sort of based on these, but I use a 6 oz glass soda bottle and cap for the glass part and I don't have a rigid tube, just the airline extending into the bottle. I've done them with rigid tubes, but that was just one more part to leak. (Leakes have plagued the DIY stuff!)


Another type is run with input on the bottom, outtake from the top, the bubble counter is the clear glass part.

Custom Aquatics- regulator, solonoid and bubble counter combo

Note that both of these use checkvalves, but metal, not plastic.


Going back to the Aquabotanic site, look at the Turbo powered reactor. And the

Aquabotanic - plantgulid Turbo power Reactor

See the little tube going into the unit? If you turn the water pump part off, and the unit is inside the tank, you can count the bubbles as they rise (while it is on there is just a whirl of bubbles and you can't count anything) I don't recall if there is a check valve in that one.

Also at Aquabotanic, look at the Reactor 500, this one runs with flow down and bubbles going up, you can see the bubbles and it is powered for greater dissolution. Compare that to the Hagen non-powered diffuser, almost the same thing, but flat and no powered counter-flow.

So you can see the gamut of types of bubble counters and varieties of reactors that may or may not include a built in bubble counter.

Most of these are sort of easy to build, if you have stuff laying around and are handy, or for not much difference than the cost and run-around time, you can just buy one that works fromthe start, no needing to mess with it, fixing leaks and whatever.

Several different ways to do the same thing.
 
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