Built Recirculating CO2 Scrubber

TCoach

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So, I’ve had issues keeping my pH over 7.8. CO2 in my house runs from ~500 with windows open to as high as 2000 when all 8 of us are home watching movies in the living room. Since it’s way to hot and humid to leave the windows open here on SC, I decided to add on a recirculating CO2 scrubber.

I found a plastic paint bucket at Lowe’s that matched my skimmer lid perfectly. Glued the bucket lid to skimmer lid and drilled out the air holes. Then attached the barb to the bottom of the paint bucket and attached an airline from the bucket to the on of my new BRS CO2 scrubber.

praying this does a significant increase to my pH.

68B94849-05E6-4BCD-9246-F09796B629FB.jpeg C6A776FF-E074-4FE4-B601-2A33FB93EC32.jpeg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg
 
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TCoach

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Anyone have an idea on how long this should take to impact pH? It appears to have had no impact over night. Right now pH is 7.69. That's a loss of .13 pH over night with the scrubber running.
 
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BTW, tank is a 92 corner with sump. Est ~100 gallon volume.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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A day or two will see the bulk of the effect.

FWIW, I'm not a fan of recirculating air in skimmers. It eliminates a useful part of skimmer action: oxygenation.
 

Billys_reef

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Are you attaching the intake tube of the skimmer pump to your CO2 scrubber?

I went from 7.8-8.1 to 8.3-8.5 and alk demand increased by 2x. All my acros were growing a lot faster and you can see the visible growth
 
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Are you attaching the intake tube of the skimmer pump to your CO2 scrubber?
Yes, it is connected to the intake. However, the intake on my skimmer is 1/4” instead of 3/8”. I’m wondering if it can pull enough air through the CO2.
 

RoweReef

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Thanks! Actually already had the 1/4 to 3/8 solved. Initially is just had the tube inserted. Went to Lowe’s and got some barbs to go from 1/4 to 3/8 and used Teflon to make it air tight.

Guess I’ll give it more time to see any effect.

BTW, my Lowe’s fix is 1/4 barb -> 1/2 treaded fitting screwed into a 1/2 pvc double threaded coupler to a 1/2 threaded to 3/8 barb. All I could do with what they had in stock.
 

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Doreno

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A day or two will see the bulk of the effect.

FWIW, I'm not a fan of recirculating air in skimmers. It eliminates a useful part of skimmer action: oxygenation.

What kind of oxygen enrichment is more important and better enriches oxygen - a skimmer or surface stirring of water in DT?
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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What kind of oxygen enrichment is more important and better enriches oxygen - a skimmer or surface stirring of water in DT?

Both, and even both together may be insufficient to keep O2 from dropping at night. :)
 

Doreno

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Both, and even both together may be insufficient to keep O2 from dropping at night. :)
Please help me understand how O2 and CO2 work?

While the our LED lights is on, the corals and algae in the DT are actively consuming CO2, when the light is turned off the corals stop consuming CO2 and at this moment it begins to accumulate in the aquarium.

My question is whether o2 and co2 are in any equilibrium state and when CO2 increases, then O2 decreases and vice versa, or their value can be independent of each other.

For example in the morning and afternoon we have 90 units or percent O2 and 10 units or percent CO2. If at night the amount of CO2 increases by 10 percent or units, does this mean that O2 will decrease by exactly the same value, i.e. by 10 units and will be equal to 80 percent or units?

OR

at night we will be have still 90 units of O2 and 20 units of CO2?

Thank you.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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O2 and CO2 are never in chemical equilibrium (except perhaps in a blast furnace), and photosynthesis and respiration are not the only processes impacting them.

They can move independently in reef aquaria, and a reef tank can have any combination of:

high CO2 and low O2 (many/most reef tanks at night)
high CO2 high O2 (many reef tanks during the day, especially when home air CO2 is higher than outside)
low CO2 and low O2 (some reef tanks using very high pH reef additives or a CO2 scrubber at night)
low CO2 and high O2 (many reef tanks during the day, especially those using high pH alk additives or a CO2 scrubber)
 

Luke_l

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I had terrible issues with ph in my system aswell.... southern ontario Canada, house is sealed up all winter, open for a month in the spring, sealed up all summer then open for a month in the fall. on top of that, i use a calcium reactor... my sump is in the bacement, so i tried cracking a window above sump in the bacement, brought ph up, but heaters ran non stop.. (tried this in the winter). then i started dosing Kalk, to help calcium reactor, (i was able to back off effluient flow which helped a bit). then i added a HRV to the furnace it is Sized corectly for my house i set it to run non stop. (i started breaking 8 during mid day) And my wifes headakes dissapeared (wife is super sensitive to co2). As is stands right now, i have Co2 Scrubber on the tank(Not recirculating) , dosing Kalkwasser 30 ml/hr , HRV runs 24 hours a day, Calcium reactor running 45 ml/min on a MTC Pro Cal reactor (at 6.3ph), and i can hit 8.2ph during peak on a 220 gallon Sps dominant tank.
 

GuppyHJD

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Both, and even both together may be insufficient to keep O2 from dropping at night. :)
I am looking at the CO2 scrubber idea and perhaps a T off the skimmer pump air line to allow outside air into the skimmer as possible, based on the pH desired/achieved. What is your preferred method of increasing the pH in the tank?
 

Gedxin

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Curious how OP is doing with their CO2 scrubber, any better results @TCoach ? Personally after attaching my CO2 scrubber I've seen significant increases. My pH was hovering around ~7.8-8.0 and now it's regularly 8-8.25 with my skimmer running 20 hours a day. I do not recirculate my CO2, I draw in fresh air from the sump cabinet.
 
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TCoach

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Curious how OP is doing with their CO2 scrubber, any better results @TCoach ? Personally after attaching my CO2 scrubber I've seen significant increases. My pH was hovering around ~7.8-8.0 and now it's regularly 8-8.25 with my skimmer running 20 hours a day. I do not recirculate my CO2, I draw in fresh air from the sump cabinet.
Seneye is reading +8.1 with a new slide. My Pinpoint reads 8.0. I don’t trust the probe as much as the seneye right now. Either way, it appears to be staying over 8 :)
 

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