Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Barr
Drilling holes works well, better than making the disc mesh, it's fine if you can get the right sizing, but the drilling of a pre made impeller is very easy, and it fits well and do not reduce the flow nearly as much.
I do not like disc diffusers as they are inconsistent and have sometimes a lot of backpressure, even the ADA, so on one tank, the CO2 does not start or finish for 1-2 hours.
Unless I use a timer separate for the solenoid, I cannot get the right CO2 at the right time.
So I have issues with the disc as much as equipment inside the tank.
I have some disc that work well, but only a few.
Cleaning weekly etc did no good.
I have a couple that are decent, but I must have went through 20.
The pore size, backpressure etc, are not consistent.
Regards,
Tom Barr
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I must say that in my thinking of mesh types, I envisioned an impeller where I took the blades and wove some stainless steel scrubber material (you know, like for washing dishes in your kitchen sink) through carefully cut holes or slots in the impeller blades. Now that would surely make for some serious bubble slicin' and dicin' action! But here's the problem with that and the mesh. Little holes and fiber fill, any kind of mesh, any kind of membrane with little passages like sponges... all these things have a dreadful little unfortunate quality when it comes to the needle wheel concept -- they clog up. That means you're going to have to keep an eye out for reduced flow on a regular basis, and probably clean out the needle wheel impeller about once a week, maybe two. The only way I can see getting around this is by using some kind of very fine pre-filter for the power head (the via aqua 1300 has just such a thing), but I have to clean out those power head sponges every three weeks anyway. Getting gunk into your impeller housing such as hair or sinewy plant matter could really do some damage I bet. You'd get that stuff wrapped around and around and either eventually snap a weak impeller shaft or surely start bringing the impeller blades off balance...scaping...popping sounds...grinding...damage...weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, hellfire and brimstone...ad nauseum. Bah. So when you take this into consideration you go dang, that meshy stuff would really tear into those bubbles, but wow what a problem that could create. A maintenance nightmare. Is it worth it?
My staggered needle idea would be less prone to clogging and still have the benefit of speedy fine bubble crushing. The idea is to get a rigid, small diameter material arranged around that impeller shaft. The smaller, the better bubble crushing edge. The more numerous, the better the overal bubble crushing. It seems there's just an inverse relationship (a trade off) between how many rigid, small-diameter obstructions you can put into that impeller space, and how much clog/cleaning you're going to get/do. Mesh puts a heck of a lot of small rigid obstructions into that space. Needles not as much, but close enough, and without the quick-clogging property of mesh.
I will make sure I post pics of my endeavors going forward, and their results.