oxygen exchange

Hobbisho · Jan 6, 2023

Hello, so my tank has plenty of flow and water breakage at the top for ample oxygen/co2 exchange to happen. What I was curious about is, if my house runs fairly high co2 levels, avg between 900/1000 (which is an issue with my older hvac system id assume, without opening windows it stays high) does that high co2 level in home, cause less exchange of oxygen back into my tank due to the higher levels in my home? or does it automatically pull and exchange what it is releasing from tank and pulling the right amount of oxygen? Is the Sera oxygen test that says it's for freshwater work in my saltwater? Didnt know if readings would be correct.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 6, 2023

Hobbisho said:
Hello, so my tank has plenty of flow and water breakage at the top for ample oxygen/co2 exchange to happen. What I was curious about is, if my house runs fairly high co2 levels, avg between 900/1000 (which is an issue with my older hvac system id assume, without opening windows it stays high) does that high co2 level in home, cause less exchange of oxygen back into my tank due to the higher levels in my home? or does it automatically pull and exchange what it is releasing from tank and pulling the right amount of oxygen? Is the Sera oxygen test that says it's for freshwater work in my saltwater? Didnt know if readings would be correct.

No, exchange of CO2 and O2 at the air/water interface are completely independent.

O2 is perhaps low at night (and maybe high during the day), but elevated CO2 in your home air will have virtually no impact on O2 in the tank (and only to the degree that elevated CO2 in the home air means slightly decreased O2 in the home air).