- Joined
- Oct 28, 2018
- Messages
- 137
- Reaction score
- 115
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.
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.