Forest fire season: switched skimmer’s outside air to recirculating CO2 scrubber

[ConsummatePro]

I took the plunge and drilled a hole to feed outside air to my skimmer - I was happy to see pH up from 7.8’s to 8-8.1.
I already ordered a CO2 scrubber kit from BRS while on sale but deferred installing since I was getting good results with the air feed.
Unfortunately it’s once again forest fire season and we were getting severe air quality warnings - figured this would be bad to pump into the tank, so I switched back to inside air (plus we aren’t opening windows now with the smoke outside).
A cool A/B experiment: within hours the ph dropped.

I decided to go ahead and install the CO2 scrubber in a recirculating fashion and I’m impressed to see pH now hitting up to the magic 8.3!

I’ll wait out the air quality warnings before I decide what to do long term but it’s cool to see the effects of outside vs inside vs recirculated CO2 scrubbing.

I get the concept that ph 8.1 vs 8.3 and the cost of media etc may not be worth it, so likely outside air will be the longer term plan when air quality isn’t an issue.

I have read about the potential for oxygen depletion with recirculating CO2 but my tank has a mesh top and uses the older Durso style overflow and makes plenty of bubbles in the sump, so I’m hoping it’ll be fine. Inhabitants look happy.

 

[Saltyreef]

I took the plunge and drilled a hole to feed outside air to my skimmer - I was happy to see pH up from 7.8’s to 8-8.1.
I already ordered a CO2 scrubber kit from BRS while on sale but deferred installing since I was getting good results with the air feed.
Unfortunately it’s once again forest fire season and we were getting severe air quality warnings - figured this would be bad to pump into the tank, so I switched back to inside air (plus we aren’t opening windows now with the smoke outside).
A cool A/B experiment: within hours the ph dropped.

I decided to go ahead and install the CO2 scrubber in a recirculating fashion and I’m impressed to see pH now hitting up to the magic 8.3!

I’ll wait out the air quality warnings before I decide what to do long term but it’s cool to see the effects of outside vs inside vs recirculated CO2 scrubbing.

I get the concept that ph 8.1 vs 8.3 and the cost of media etc may not be worth it, so likely outside air will be the longer term plan when air quality isn’t an issue.

I have read about the potential for oxygen depletion with recirculating CO2 but my tank has a mesh top and uses the older Durso style overflow and makes plenty of bubbles in the sump, so I’m hoping it’ll be fine. Inhabitants look happy.

Wow!

Thats impressive.

I think i will choose this option first if I were to ever run a skimmer again (even just for the ph boost)

Drilling a hole in the wall is my least favorable plan

 

[taricha]

Nice data!

 

[Corolling]

I'm confused why an air line helps with some but not all, I'm one of those people. I run an airpump in my window and have a airline into my skimmer. I do not see any ph improvements. In summer with a/c, I'll have ph of 7.6. I run my tank with kalk slurry. Problem with slurry, I can only go to 8.1 ish, and if I push more slurry into the tank I get precipitation event and all hell breaks loose with alk falling to 6.5 from 10. I have to do massive water changes and run my calrx full blast to get alk to raise.. any advice?