This is an API tube array I use to capture pressurized co2 injected into a .5 gallon tank
The tank has a fitted glass lid, its not gasket quality seal but its glass on glass quality. Im sure some air exchange occurs although its fractional to an open topped setup.
The tubes are full of water, and injecting into the lowest tube cascades the gas up to the last tube displacing all the water ready for bright lights.
By around 1 pm the tubes have 10% gas left and are mostly water, this is the repeating cycle of gas in my little tank.
if you capture and find the right tube diameter/bubble surface area that creates a drain rate approximate to your photoperiod you have a completely safe way to gas a micro tank and not kill the neocaridinas breeding within...this array drains from full of gas to full of water in six hours like clockwork so i fill it twice per day off paintball setup and not during the night phase
It took a couple months working up from a two tube array and making incremental guesswork about levels using typical surface seeking behavior of gassed feeder guppies and plant pearling to arrive at the five tube array I'm with, its enough co2 to get anything to carpet now.
[video=youtube;l9PtoXrN6Yk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9PtoXrN6Yk[/video]
1. If I run the lights without gas there is zero pearling. If I fill the tubes, pearling begins in about one minute on the other side of the tank, yet the tubes don't noticeably decrease the bubble size as that takes hours. Is there some kind of molecular pull and natural distribution system that prevents a bulk of dissolved gas right around the array but instead spreads it evenly across the tank? I've wondered if there is a natural physicality that wants the molecules evenly distributed even without obvious current to aid that. Not sure if thats Henry's law.
2. What is this motion called where the water and gas alternatively fill each tube, I've never known how to term that action.
3. In contemplating partial gas pressure details, consider the actual submersion depth of the tubes. If you take an inverted API tube full of gas and submerge it half way, it has a little tendency to push up with positive buoyancy. If you push it down 8 inches into the water it has a stronger up push, so by extension is that creating a faster drain rate by adding a form of compression to the tubes? Contrast that to the video example above where the water line is low and the tubes are high, thats the lowest partial pressure drain setting im thinking but not sure.
4. The tubes actually don't drain at a measurable difference rate between night and day but common assumptions would tell us the demand is higher for it in the day for obvious reasons. Why does co2 gas out at night at the same rate as the daytime when fixing is biologically restricted? I thought the excess co2 at night from lack of biological uptake would increase partial pressure in the water and draw less out of the tubes. A slower drain rate.
I honestly have that many questions about my tube array lol thanks for setting the gas straight. Here's the in tank run:
[video=youtube;yNx8y-ttJSY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNx8y-ttJSY[/video]
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