[reefburnaby]

Hi,

Yah...I had some problems at first. Say, we are aiming for 30 to 60 bubbles per minutes. This is in range...may be a bit high...but it should be close.

Turn off the regulator. Turn on the CO2 Tank and needle valve.

1. Adjust the regulator to around 2 psi. There are two dials. One is the pressure from the tank and one is pressure after the regulator. The pressure from the tank should read 800 psi or so. The other one should range from 0 to 40 psi (or so). This is what I use...each system will vary with this value. Rememeber to turn on the needle valve -- doesn't matter if it is full blast...it doesn't matter as long as CO2 is coming out. We need to turn the needle valve so that we can properly adjust the regulator. 2psi.
2. Turn off the needle valve and then turn the needle valve on a little bit -- just a hair (say 1/8th or less turn). Since the regulator is controlling the pressure to a very low value...you can fiddle around and see how you can turn off the needle valve. Just enough for CO2 to make some bubbles (say 1 bubble per second or so). If you see bubbles...that's enough. Don't worry about the exact rate -- just be in the right range (1 bps). If you see too many bubbles (i.e. you can't count them), then you need to back off a little bit.
3. Okay...we have some bubbles going to the reactor. Maybe 200 bpm...maybe 10 bpm. Adjust the regulator (i.e. PSI) so that you can get the right bpm. Adjust slowly (1/8th turn or less). Remember to leave it running for a couple minutes for the bpm to settle down.

4. With some patients, you should get it running at 30 to 60 bpm. Measure the effluent and check if it is around 6.5 pH. pH too high -- more bpm. pH too low -- less bpm. It will take roughly an hour for the pH to settle down to a stable value.

Hope that helps.

.....
Darn...somebody beat me to the bell.

- Victor.

[ 10 December 2001: Message edited by: reefburnaby ]