Side effects of bad air quality with in the reef tank.

spspirate

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So do you burn candles in your house? Incense? Burn dinner ever? Wife and hair spray?..LOL House cleaning on Saturday mornings with all the sprays and cleaning aroma in the air? Does this have a sudden negative impact on our tank inhabitants and water quality? Of course out in the middle of the ocean no one is spraying 409 wiping down tables and burning the biscuits. So is running carbon enough? Weekly water changes? Or should we just shut the door to the fish room as all this is happening? Tell the wife no candles or glade plugins. Take out for now on......LOL! In our house we aren't perfect and we do end up doing some of these things from time to time. For example to help the situation we have been buying the wipes to clean with and using a scentsy candle when we want the house to smell good. If we burn food we open windows and doors. When my wife puts her hair spray on she closes the bathroom door and puts the fan on. Every so often we aerate the house to rid of CO2 build up and renew the house with fresh clean air. Is all this going the extra mile helping out the reef?
 
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luxauterna

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That is a very good question. I would say that carbon will help, but I have no idea how well.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Air quality can be a significant concern.

I've heard to tank crashes from paints and floor finishes, for example.

Turning off a skimmer and possibly even covering a tank during a serious fume event (like sanding and recoating hardwood floors, house painting, etc.) may be desirable.

More and fresh GAC is certainly a reasonable approach.

For normal, everyday stuff, using GAC can be useful. Some folks bring in outside air to a skimmer inlet, mostly to reduce CO2 levels.

Fortunately, I live in an older, leaky home, and my wife has a thing (a negative thing) about chemicals. :)
 

kdino1

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my tank is in an office environment that gets cleaned daily with no ill outcomes thus far.
 

KorD

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I thought about this subject before when a friend of mine had his floors redone. The fumes from redoing the hardwood floors left a film on the top of his water. He did have coral that died off from that project and swears never to do it again.
The reason why I think of it all the time is due to even "what about windex" on the outside of my tank.. granted I do not spry on the tank, but onto a cloth to get all the finger prints off the tank from my kids.
 

Bad Company

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I spray windex right onto the glass. I am fairly careful about overspray though. There is a vast difference between a few mL of windex sprayed on the glass, and potentially gallons of floor finish used on the floor. Common sense applies... if it overwhelms you senses it is probably bad for you tank. If you can smell it after a minute, relax.
 
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spspirate

spspirate

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You guys are brave with that windex! You must have a canopy? I run a open top reef and just use water and squeegee to clean the glass.
 

skinz78

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LOL Windex is just ammonia right?

I've always wondered about our in home man made environment and it's effects on our systems. I for one have a wood stove and wonder if it has any ill effects on my reef, I know they put out a lot of dust.
 
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spspirate

spspirate

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It's full of preservatives, fragrances, stabilizers and ph adjuster. Among other things.
 

Bad Company

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I just have a screen top, and I'm sure some very small percentage of the Windex gets in the water.

Lets say I get a whole squirt in. Which is maybe what? a quarter of a cc? Let's call it that. My system holds about 70 gallons of water = 265 liters. One squirt is 0.25 cc diluted in 265,000 cm^3 or about 1ppm. 1ppm is bad ammonia. So don't squirt it in your tank directly.

Overspray is a very small amount of the total volume of the spray. So the moral? Don't squirt it in your water, or clean your glass with Windex every day in a very small room with no windows while you are refinishing your floor.
 
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Big Wave

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I used to have a tank in my basement, which is a workshop/garage. Dogs hate it down there; there is a stank in the air from all of the nasty chemicals and such we store there. Also, the vent from the clothes drier broke open, and a good deal of lint found its way into my tank. Let's just say that this tank was a disaster. Dinoflagellates took over. I fought them for months. Finally I just gave up (the right call :), tore everything down, muriatic acid bathed my rocks, and moved all of my tanks upstairs.
 

fishroomlady

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Overspray is a very small amount of the total volume of the spray. So the moral? Don't squirt it in your water, or clean your glass with Windex every day in a very small room with no windows while you are refinishing your floor.

this made me laugh! good advice bad company :)
 

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