I went to a Dave Mathiews concert on Saturday. A friend of a friend had an extra lawn seat ticket, so $40 later, I had something to do yesterday. We did the tailgating thing, getting up to West Palm Beach around 3 for the 7 oclock show. It was increadiably hot out, so we needed to bring a tent. One of the couples that drove down for the Saturday show (it was a 2 night show, Friday and Saturday) brought the tent so we had some shade. I guess Friday was unbearable without any shade.
John Downs drove his 100th Anneversary Harley Davidson up to the tailgate party.
There where 18 or 20 of us total driving in from all over the state as well as 1 couple who came all the way from Aruba just for the show.
We broke the party down around 6 oclock with a few people going in early to set up the blankets so we all had a space to sit together.
The concert was pretty good. I am not all that big of a Dave fan, only really likeing his hits. I am not sure that it would have been worth the money I spent if it wasn’t for the tailgating.
Is it sad that I am buying somebody else’s USED threads? One would think that
Mother and I were looking online for a place in Florida to buy thread. I found a place… eBay! They sell everything! Somebody in Florida was selling off their Edmar Rayon thread, and I bought up all 7 sets of it. I got combined shipping on it, so I ended up getting it for less then half price. Most of the colors have more then half of the threads left, so I guess it is a pretty good deal. These are old though, the tags are all one color – I think all the new tags are color coded to the size of thread. I also ended up with a few duplicate colors, and the used colors are a bit faded compared to the ones Mother got me new for Christmas. It could just be lot differences, but I thought these weren’t supposed to fade at all.
I am busy sorting the new (used) threads into my existing stock. What a pain!
Here is a video of my brand spanking new, already modified Carbon DiOxide aquarium reactor.
The water flows into the top in the big hose, which is coming from my external canister filter. The CO2 is coming from a pair of old juice bottles which have water, baking yeast and sugar in them. This all gets mixed up in all the splashing fun as it goes down the tube with the bio-balls.
At the end of the video you can see my little CO2 monitor in the fish tank – that little bell thingy stuck to the side of the tank. Blue means low CO2, green means good CO2, and if you notice it is more green then it is blue. This is even after the old method of CO2 injection was showing blue, and I hadn’t refreshed my Yeast Bottles yet. This new device appears to be more effective at CO2 Injection then the old feed-it-through-the-canistor-filter method.
I did a little research last night on the internet about how other people where building their CO2 reactors. Nothing like researching after the fact, right? I was looking to see if anybody else was building their reactor the same way I was. I didn’t find reference to it, but, there are hundreds of DIY Reactors out there, so I not too worried about not finding one. I did stumble across a person who used an RC airplane part called a Bulkhead Fitting. This looked to be a much cleaner way of attaching the airline tubing to my reactor.
Big Al’s was having it’s 1 year anniversary this weekend, and the “plant guy” was giving a demonstration on how to build a proper planted tank. I figured I wouldn’t learn much, but it was something to do with my Saterday, so I went. I was right, his song and dance was for new peeps, and not experienced planted tank creators. More importantly, there is a hobby shop next to Big Al’s, so I could pick up this part.
At the hobby store, in the RC airplane section, I found my new fitting. It is a “Large Bulkhead Fitting, 1/8 inch I.D.” packaged by a company called “Fourmost Products”. It is designed to be used as a fuel line connector.
Here is my old (heh, 2 whole days!) airline connection using a airline tube elbow fitting. I had zip-tied it together. I had managed to make the whole reactor without any glue, and it didn’t leak (much)!
Here is the top part of my new fitting. I think this looks much better then the old fitting did. I used the old part of the hose that had the old fitting cut into it to make a seal for my new fitting. I don’t have any small O-rings for this yet, so I had to improvise. Getting proper O-Rings is on my todo list.
Here is the inside view of my new fitting. Don’t do what I did, and make the hole too close to the outside of the endcap so the nut won’t set square. I still put it together like this because I am way to impatient to go get some silicone, and seal the hole up, and drill a new one. My fitting does leak just a tiny little bit, but not enough to worry about it today.
Here is the finished reactor modification. I really like that the blue fitting matches the blue bioballs. The fitting seems just the right size for my airline tubing.
I am going to use the other fitting that came in the two-pack and replace one of my CO2 bottles where the current glued together mess is coming apart.
As promised, here are some more details on the construction of my Home Made CO2 Reactor. This CO2 Reactor is made from a couple of aquarium siphons, and an airline tubing splice connector.
I drilled a hole in the top Siphon Cap the same size as the airline tubing splice connector. I chose to drill the hole as close to the edge of the ridged plastic in hopes that I can give the connection some mechanical strength. I left as much room as I could so there would be enough surface area to make a watertight connection.
Here I am drilling a hole through the plastic siphon hose after I had slipped it back onto the end of the siphon cap. This hole is the same size as the inside of the plastic airline splice peice. I wanted the rubbery hose to form a tight seal around the airline splice.
After a lot of cleaning of the burs in the hose and pushing hard, I finally got the splice to fit inside the hole.
I made an improvised clamp system out of 3 nylon zip ties to hold this whole area toghether. This area leaked a little bit, so I ended up wrapping another zip tie around the elbow of the airline tubing and the siphon tube, to press the airline tubing more tightly against the rubbery hose in hopes of creating a better seal. The water leak seems to have stopped.
In looking at how the completed arrangement thing functions, I may move the airline tubing down into the larger part of the siphon tube. With the airline tubing fitting where it currently is in the hose, a lot of water preasure is trying to make the whole thing leak. I think by moving the airline fitting out of the hose, and into the larger tube, where there is mostly gas as opposed to moving water, I can eleminate the chance of this fitting creating a leak. I also think that I would be able be able to change out one of my Yeast & Sugar CO2 bottles without water trying to flow down the airline tubes when the whole thing is mounted higher then the water level on the fish tank.
