Reactor assembled. Pic Now running.

[DJ88]

To prime it, you have to turn on your pump, undo one of your unions, and let the air out until the pump is pushing water

You dont need to turn the pump on to prime it. Open a union or else place a guest fitting on the PVC before the pump. YOu may get a small leak of water(I never had more than what a face cloth could catch). There were mods I have done that corrects all of these problems. I moved both the CO2 in and Recirc lines onto the PCV prior to the pump intake. To prime you take the tubing out of a fitting an let the air bleed out due to the pressure created by the water in the chamber above. NO muss no fuss.

I'm not sure what the solution is just yet, but, I'm having a heck of a time clearing the lower chamber of bubbles.

I don't know why this is happeneing.. Both mine and Bruce's reactors built in this fashion do not have air accumulate in the lower chamber. Where are you injecting the CO2? Try and have in injected so it goes into the pump to be chopped then into the TOP of the reactor. if any collection occurs it will then be at the top of the reacotr and removed by the recirc device.


A trick of mine that I will use on any tank I may set up now is to have the effluent outlet directly into the overflow box up in the tank. This allows any excess CO2 to have a long drip down through a chaotic bubble area then into the sump and through the sump. Much better. As well it eliminates the possibility of a possible draining of the reactor due to it's own water volume pressing down on the outlet. With a check valve after the pump injecting water in the unit will then not lose water volume due to internal pressures.