Question for those that have a basement system. CO2!!!

sawdonkey · Jul 20, 2018

anit77 said:
I'm no chemist...l but I think it has to do with allowing the individual pellets to absorb more co2 before a carbonate shell seals off the interior or those pellets.

......where’s Randy????[emoji3]

anit77 · Jul 20, 2018

@Randy Holmes-Farley

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 21, 2018

sawdonkey said:
Ok, but why does the humid air extend the life of the media? What is happening chemically?

I’m not implying that the recycled air is the main benefit, but my logic (which isn’t always sound) would tell me that this is.

As folks have noted, a solid particle reacting with a gas is essentially limited to reacting on the surface of each grain. The interior is wasted.

If the air is humid enough, you can create a moist environment on the surface of each particle (like salt left out on a very humid day: it collects moisture and eventually dissolves into that collected water). That environment dissolves a little of the solid material, allow more complete use of it (but likely still not all of it).

FWIW, soda lime gots it first big use in anaesthesia where you want to reduce CO2 the patient is rebreathing. The moisture the patient lungs added allowed a lot more extensive use of the media than if the air was dry.

sawdonkey · Jul 21, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
As folks have noted, a solid particle reacting with a gas is essentially limited to reacting on the surface of each grain. The interior is wasted.

If the air is humid enough, you can create a moist environment on the surface of each particle (like salt left out on a very humid day: it collects moisture and eventually dissolves into that collected water). That environment dissolves a little of the solid material, allow more complete use of it (but likely still not all of it).

FWIW, soda lime gots it first big use in anaesthesia where you want to reduce CO2 the patient is rebreathing. The moisture the patient lungs added allowed a lot more extensive use of the media than if the air was dry.

Thanks Randy. That makes a lot of sense. The soda lime I’m using is from a veterinary company and I believe it is to be used exactly as you describe.

I’ve been running my makeshift scrubber for a few days and my PH has stayed above 8.0 since. It was dropping down to as low as as 7.75. We’ll se how the media lasts. I don’t want to drill my skimmer lid, so I’ll probably just set my “scrubber,” which is just a BRS jug with holes in the bottom full of soda lime, on top of my skimmer where the air vents.

Really though, I just need it to get me through this period of having so few corals that I can’t use significant amounts of Kalk. Before my house fire /tank crash, I had tons of SPS and was dosing fully saturated Kalk water through ATO.....and always had > 8.0 PH.