# Heating and bending Eheim/rubber hose.



## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Very innovative.


----------



## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

I have seen that method used on other plumbing materials. To heat and bend the tubing it really helps to have a support system so the pressure is spread evenly over the whole area that is supposed to bend. 
That method looks really easy to do!


----------



## TeamTeal (Mar 31, 2010)

so the "co2 reactor" is just a chamber where the co2 goes in to the canister through the propeller?

very nice DIY btw =D


----------



## bigboij (Jul 24, 2009)

do you put anything in the reactor? or are you just using the dwell time it will have due to the large chamber?


----------



## The Plantman (May 5, 2010)

TeamTeal said:


> so the "co2 reactor" is just a chamber where the co2 goes in to the canister through the propeller?
> 
> very nice DIY btw =D


Sort of, the Co2 reactor is a large tube that dissolves the Co2 into the water, by means of the flow of water. The larger the tube the slower the water travels through it.

If you look at this picture,









[/SIZE][/FONT]

The arrow shows the direction of water flow. The Co2 is released at the top of the large tube by means of an air hose that is connected at the top of the large tube. The bubbles start out large and fight the current trying to pull them down. As this is happens, the Co2 bubbles shrink as they slowly get dissolved into the water. When they are small enough the current will suck what is left down the bottom of the tube spit them out into the tank not into the filters.

Having the bubbles getting sucked into the filters disturbs the debris that is in them and some gets spit back out into the tank. This is why I needed to figure a way to get it on the exhaust. In order to do this I needed to create something that would flip the reactor over as the flow on the exhaust is going up not down.


----------



## The Plantman (May 5, 2010)

Diana said:


> I have seen that method used on other plumbing materials. To heat and bend the tubing it really helps to have a support system so the pressure is spread evenly over the whole area that is supposed to bend.
> That method looks really easy to do!


Yes, it worked amazingly well. In fact I squished them a little to much but this just enabled me to bend them even more so and so I was able to make the reactor much narrower then I had originally planned.


----------



## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Where did you get the clear acrylic tube?


----------



## The Plantman (May 5, 2010)

Hilde said:


> Where did you get the clear acrylic tube?


From Big Al's.


----------

