Bio bucket venturi

[stonedage]

I am going to build myself a biobucket system with in the next 2 weeks and have been fretting over the waterfalls 1' drop in the res, I got thinking about my pond and how i oxygenate it. Of coure i do have a water fall in it but i also have added a venturiPeice of tubing cut at a 45 to the return pipe that ingects O2 straight into the line, they are a tad noisy, you get a slurping sound but very effective, cheap and if you put a bafle on the end will be substantially quieter than a 1' drop(i can hear my 1400ghp return that drops about 8" from a 2"line from about 40' outside. But i really dont know how much it will add or have any tools to measure the DO. Any opinions?

 

[Blunt_69]

Thats cool!! I think it would work just fine.Plenty of O2 there.

 

[BudGood2006]

Hmmmm...Very interesting... My waterfall isn't too loud, to be honest, the Honeywell fan that I have blowing into the res is louder... But I dunno, why not do both? More DO never hurt a plant....

I've been considering buying a DO meter, seems like it'd be interesting to quantify the amount of DO actually present in the water. Time to do some research.

 

[stonedage]

i think that i will put a venturi in right after the pump and then experiment with differnt drop hights for the water fall, i expect to actually see air bubbles flowing into the buckets from the fill lines if i do it this way but i am not sure if this happens with the waterfall? eventually i will try and put a smaller venturi on everyline going into each bucket, but that will be the next grow. Dont want to try to many things at once

 

[rule35sub1]

I have about a 6 inch drop and use a venturi, no worries...

 

[BlindDate]

Try This, its better than a Venturi since the impeller shreads the bubbles micro size, and a DC motor puts much less heat into the reservoir than an AC one.

http://www.keepalive.net/

 

[stonedage]

ya but that cost money and a venturi doesnt, well besides a little fitting, no hydro use or anything, zero maitnance and no heat what so ever(really its just the moving water that draws in the air as it passes the tubing that is cut at a 45 and a vee, but thank you for showing us, and yes it looks like it would add a large ammount of air to the water

 

[BlindDate]

ya but that cost money and a venturi doesnt, well besides a little fitting, no hydro use or anything, zero maitnance and no heat what so ever

What do you mean? You still have to buy a pump for that venturi. All submersible pumps put heat into the water. DC motors generate much less heat than AC motors.

 

[stonedage]

no you dont need a pump for the venturi, yes you need a pump to move the water obviously but the venturi puts air into the water by the water actually drawing it in through the tube, the is nothing mechanical about it very simple, just a tube inthe flow line
Take alook at the pics, see the tube in the first one? that is the venturi, note the 45 and the vee, now look at the second pic, thats it installed, its just a tube, thats it. the second pic really shows it all, look close see the pump? see the tube? see the bubbles? beautiful eh, its like poetry in motion,lol. Hope this helps

 

[BlindDate]

Yes, I know exactly how it works. What I am saying is you still need a pump to move the water. If you want to improve on your method buy a venturi tube with internal geometries that will put WAY more O2 in the res than the simple setup that you have.
http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/product.detail/iid/7967/cid/2293

OR

The Keep Alive infuser also uses a water pump. It brings air into the impeller of the pump which smashes the bubbles to micron size. The millions of smaller bubbles have many times the surface area in contact with the water than larger bubbles, also smaller bubbles stay suspended in solution longer so as to allow even greater oxygen transfer. Plus, the Keep Alive unit uses a DC motor = little heat.

I am simply suggesting ways to increase the DO levels above your current method.

 

[stonedage]

sorry my bad, I thought that you werent getting it. that infuser does look amazing, i think ill add it to my future instalments list. thanks for the link ive bookmarked it now

 

[Guest]

Does anyone on this site own a DO meter to run tests ?

 

[BudGood2006]

Not yet, I will soon

 

[Guest]

forgot what i was gonna say...

 

[gmanwho]

adjustable venturi....

adjustable venturi....

Who ever has installed a venturi, where did you install yours?

I was thinking of teeing off of the rez supply to the pump, adding a 3/4 ball valve to adjust air intake, and some sort of make shift baffle.( 3/4 pvc, say 6 inches long, screen off one end, fill with activated carbon, screen off and cotton balls or poly fill ton the open air end)and attach to the other end of the valve. this 3/4 pvc baffle will rise above the rez, incase of a power outage to prevent water back flow into room.

By doing this, it probally would in theory, make the pump abit louder, since the air is getting smashed by the impellar. but creating tons of DO to the water.

Will be using a sequence/dart 3600 gph pump.

Any thoughts???


Thanks to all who have contributed to icmag, and especially those in the bio bucket threads........................stay safe.

 

[Δ9-THC]

wow that's a huge pump to designate to oxygenating your reservoir. You can get DO test kits at aquarium stores, it's a titration kit just like pH drops. The size of the tubing entering the venturi (or the intake of the pump so the air bubbles are chopped up) should not be so large as to necessitate a 3/4" ball valve. You probably only need somethin about the size of airline tubing.

 

[rule35sub1]

You can see my venturi hose running along the power cord. It attaches right to the back of the water pump. That is about a 6 to 8 inch drop for the waterfall effect.

 

[Blunt_69]

The updated trays are getting a homemade venturi installed along a 6 inch waterfall drop.Found a cool diagram on how to build one through google will post it if i can find it!

 

[gmanwho]

thc: the pump is not designated to just adding DO. it will feed the whole system. just by using the pump already used, adding air on the intake side it may create an effect similar to the keepalive venturi.

In fact i am willing to bet that the "keepalive venturi" is the same design/concept as to what i proposed about adding the venturi before the pumps intake. so the air and water hit the impeller, smashes them together creating super high oxiginated water (or atleast to the point the water cannot hold anymore DO ). and then distributing to the root system.

stay safe....

 

[gmanwho]

rule35sub1: does the venturi drop right before the pumps intake? If so, what have you noticed in improvements.

Infact, i have thought of purchasing an Oxygen concentrator, feeding the concentrators air thru stones into the rez, just before the pumps intake. Did you happen to read the other forums on this? Probally wouldnt be practical on a few bucket system, but a 24 bucket system, ohhhhh yeah.. thats what im talking about.


The concentrator is just an experiment, if its works i will surely post about it. but i had already decided on buying a used oxygen concentrator anyways. If it doesnt do much to the system, i can use it in the morning for my hangovers. That would be great, wake up with a hangover, roll over, turn the machine on, put the mask on for an hour or two. Im sure it would do wonders either way, to me, or the system.

Stay safe all.....

stay safe all....