De-gassing well water question.

[kc350twin]

Hello I have a question. I have been de-gassing my well water for a while now and i now have my tank and sump in the same room as my water storage tanks in my basement. So I have a 50gal Rubbermaid can that I pump fresh air into via a airstone and wanted to know if the CO2 is heavy and stays in the basement? Does my tank and sump just absorb it?

I have plans of buying a new water storage tank to De-gas can I install a vent pipe in the top and vent the unwanted CO2 outside?

Also would like to know is this effort really worth it? I have had low ph for quite some time now and combat it with Kalk just fine.


Thanks
Kc3

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Alright, let's see if we can get through this barrage of questions efficiently.

1. The molecular weight of CO2 is around 44 and the average molecular weight of dry air is around 28.84, give or take a few decimal points for poor memory. The CO2 is therefore heavier and can definitely collect in the basement without adequate ventilation, but I suspect this would take quite a while as most well water contains fairly small amounts of dissolved CO2. A buildup would also require fairly poor air exchange.
2. Whatever water is in the basement can definitely re-absorb the ambient CO2, and the process is expedited with elevated ambient CO2 levels. Unless you pump in air from the outside, you're probably not doing any good if ambient CO2 levels are elevated.
3. Yes, you can vent the CO2 to an outside source. However, if you can control the low pH by using calcium hydroxide, then just do that. The CO2 will be converted to carbonate alkalinity, reducing the amount of sodium carbonate you will need to add (assuming you are two-part dosing).

Hope this helps!

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

One other question...are you treating your water with reverse osmosis? If so, that should take care of some of the dissolved CO2 by itself. Are you using untreated well water in your reef tank?

 

[kc350twin]

Yes I use RO/Di and if I don't de-gas with outside air the well water will eat though a full canister of DI resin in about 50 gallons of product water.

My pH in my well water is about 5 and is treated with Soda Ash injection. I adjust it to make my water ph neutral in the 7-8 range but does not help my DI exhaustion. I have learned to live with just de-gassing for about 24 hours and this let's my DI resin last about 6months or so and roughly
600 gallons.

 

[kc350twin]

I also feed my skimmer with outside air to help with pH problems.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Sounds like you have it under control. I'm kind of surprised the reverse osmosis doesn't help more as it will remove some dissolved gases (I suppose you may just have high levels of dissolved CO2). Using outside air in your skimmer definitely helps. Do you happen to know the TDS of the water exiting the RO before the deionizing resin treatment?

 

[kc350twin]

Not exact numbers off hand but it's low. 004 to 009 range if I'm not mistaken. I will check next round of water tomorrow.

I guess my main question was if I have a Norwesco tank in the basement with air stones pumping air in will the CO2 exit the tank via a bulkhead out the top to the outside? If that makes sense?

I guess without a CO2 meter in the basement I'd never know.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Oh, okay. That's close enough. You definitely need deionizing resin, then. The reason I asked is that in some locations, ground water is good enough where you could use RO only. I was hoping you might be able to skip Di completely :/

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hello I have a question. I have been de-gassing my well water for a while now and i now have my tank and sump in the same room as my water storage tanks in my basement. So I have a 50gal Rubbermaid can that I pump fresh air into via a airstone and wanted to know if the CO2 is heavy and stays in the basement? Does my tank and sump just absorb it?

I have plans of buying a new water storage tank to De-gas can I install a vent pipe in the top and vent the unwanted CO2 outside?

Also would like to know is this effort really worth it? I have had low ph for quite some time now and combat it with Kalk just fine.


Thanks
Kc3

The air within a room will be fully mixed in a scenario like yours. Whether that air has more or less CO2 than your upstairs, I cannot say, but it will have density nearly identical to the upstairs air at the same temperature and the CO2 difference (higher or lower) won't significantly cause or deter movement upstairs because CO2 makes up such a tiny fraction of the air itself.

Movement up can be driven by temperature differences which make a substantial difference to density.