Jbl Co2 Diffuser Problems

[Ste_J]

Hope you get it sorted soon mate.

Hopefully the reducer will be the answer as you should be able to reduce the pressure lower than 2.

 

[karlp]

Alright I'm confused now - How long should the JBL diffuser be? Been searching the wicked wide but can't find a sensible answer

As long as possible is the answer, so that as much of the CO2 disolves, but finishing at least 4cm from the water surface.

I have the JBL diffuser and also noticed that a lot of the CO2 was being wasted, so I bought a second one and connected them together to make one very long one. In the manual it says you should have 4cm of water above it, so I've got it so there's a couple of inches above it and it sits below the spray bar (which is below the surface so it doesn't disturb the surface). I've been up to 35ppm CO2 with 2* 2 litre DIY bottles once, although normally it just goes as high as 30ppm, which is pretty good going for DIY CO2. The plant growth has been great and they've been pearling nicely.

Looks like this:

Having said all that, if I had pressured CO2 I'd probably got with a sintered glass affair too. Something like:

looks cool

Cheers

Karl.

 

[hunterm8]

i have one of those glass diffusers and i take it from the spiralyou are ment to have water inside ?? but how do you get it in? am i being thick or is there something obvious

 

[Discomafia]

I think the spiral is for the CO2 bubble to let it difuse better, and the chamber is supposed to be filled with water. You get water in by removing the ceramic disc, placing the diffuser underwater to allow the chamber to fill with water, and then replacing the ceramic disc. I think it works something like my Azoo diffuser, just hope I'm correct...

 

[hunterm8]

i dont think you can remove the disk from these

 

[smithrc]

Jimboo.... Just another idea.

We are using a Aquamedic 500 - its a powered diffuser and uses a powerhead to 'blow' water down over the uprising co2 in the spiral. with the powerhead set to the correct flowrate there is 100% co2 'disolvation'

the power head means that the water that is rich in co2 is pushed around the tank nicely. just wondering if your getting a co2 concedtrated area or somwthing odd like that...

 

[danski]

i have a glass diffuser and never adder water..it seems to work its way in..i dont think the ceramic disk is meant to be removed...as far as i know it somehow worked its way in everytime..you can try to shake the water out but its pretty hard..after cleaning my diffuser had no water and floated for a couple days...after i anchored it in place a couple days later it was full of water again..hope this helps..

 

[hunterm8]

ok thanks maybe i was being inpatiant i will leave it in the tank for a bit.

 

[danski]

no prob..just keep it under water though and it should fill...

 

[jimbooo]

well things are getting worse. got home last night to a 2nd empty bottle. thats an average of 4 days a bottle. awesome.

i've spoken to a JBL rep who is replacing my solenoid and pressure reducer. the problem has to lie there as there are no leaks in the connections.

the saga goes on.

nutrafins going back on tonight, grrrr

update time (my last post above so you can follow the situation)

1 month on and i've finally got the replacement solenoid and pressure reducer and they even replaced one co2 bottle free as well

now the embarrasing bit ) lol

I put it all together last night and set the bubble rate. guess what, i had exactly the same problems. i was getting either a big blast of constant co2 or nothing at all. impossible to set it to any number of bubbles a second and when i managed it, 10 mins later it had drastically changed.

so i took a closer look, literally... the bottle is behind the tank on a shelf at eye level so i leaned in and fiddled there (previously i have lifted it out to fiddle with it.)

when i got close i noticed a cold draft on my face....to my huge relief and major embarassment the damn one way valve has a great big hole in it. god knows how i didn't find it before...

so i swapped it with one of the 3 i have in the cupboard.. problem solved and a lot of expensive equipment has been changed for no reason at all. lol

that explains the bubble rate problems as well as the co2 loss in a week. the pressure was always varying due to the leak.

i feel a bit dumb now but thought someone may benefit from my findings.
either way the co2's sorted now so i should be back on track soon enough. Phew

James

 

[karlp]

Hi Jimboo

Are you still using the JBL diffuser ? do you want to extend it ?

I have one that is now surplus to requirements which I'd let go cheap. It is brand new and came in the profi 1 kit, just plug it onto the end.

 

[jimbooo]

thanks for the offer but i've got 2 sections too many already. it goes the whole height of the tank.
i'm going to leave it as standard for a while and see how much co2 i get before changing anything. after all the diffuser wasn't the problem after all it was the one way valve.

 

[kamel_007]

Hey gang.

my JBL co2 kit has been running for almost a week now and the PH will not drop below 7.4/7.5 with a KH of 11 that gives me about 10-15 ppm co2.

the bubble rate is set to 2 bubbles per second.


i'm sorry but two nutrafins gave me more co2 than that? the bubbles are behaving, their rising up the spiral nicely and are very very tiny by the time they get to the top. whats going on here? the co2 is dissolving but no way near enough of it.

surely 2 bubbles per second is enough for a 40G. any more and it looks stupid with bubbles going so fast that they dont get time to dissolve.

i'm thinking of getting one of those glass diffusers that release a really fine stream of co2 bubbles but not too sure if they are any better than the JBL spiral thingy.

what do you guys think?

oh and the temp in my flat goes up and down during the day. when i'm out the heating is off and the rate is about 2 bubbles per second by the time you've had the heating on for a few hours the room temp goes up and all of a sudden i have 4/5 bubbles per second.

i must say i'm really not impressed with this kit. if i cant get the thing sorted the nutrafins are going back on. (and i really was hoping this would be a usefull upgrade)

HELP PLEEESE

Hiii jimboo, i have the same problem here,

I've ceramic diffuser, with only 15 ppm of co2,

So, i think the diffuser's like that sort, doesn't doing the job..!!

Any different ideas?

 

[jimbooo]

6 days since getting the replacement kit and guess what. no co2 left, fish gasping at the top and plants all but dead. i set the rate in the morning to 1 bubble every 2 seconds. for 2 days i came home to 8 bubbles/sec and the rest of the week it was just random. one day it stopped totally and then of it's own accord started bursting big streams into the tank.

needless to say i've had it with this JBL profi2. getting a full refund this afternoon and ordering another co2 kit from a different manufacturer.

please dont try and convince me to keep it, not going to happen. what other kits are people using? i'm open to any sugestions and have £200 to spend (credit note only or course!)

 

[karlp]

What about getting a basic CO2 pressurised setup from another manufacturer with your credit note and then buy a PH controller and solenoid off ebay. These are the ones I got and they work great. PH controller £67 and soleniod £23. It's great, because if the bubble rate does vary at all, the PH controller sorts it out until it can be adjusted. Prevents the fish being killed by end of tank dump and all that....

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/DIGITAL-PH-CO2-REDOX...1QQcmdZViewItem

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/DIGITAL-PH-CO2-REDOX...1QQcmdZViewItem

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/CO2-solenoid-for-aqu...1QQcmdZViewItem

Cheers