piranhaman00
2500 Club Member
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- Jun 24, 2019
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Hello, something very interesting I noticed on my tank recently that has been pointed out by @Randy Holmes-Farley and others as a warning.
160 gallons, lids on DT, air exchange is probably mostly through skimmer.
I was running a Lifereef skimmer through a Co2 scrubber in recirculating fashion. Getting amazing results increased growth and had about 0.3-0.4 increase in pH.
Recently started having nutrient issues so I decided to throw on another skimmer I had laying around. I set this skimmer to draw air from the collection cup of the Lifereef, so although the air wasn’t going directly through a reactor it was pulling air that had been through a reactor at one point.
I had another pH bump and less of a dip at night, also nutrients are raising much slower so I was very happy.
Couple of days passed and my corals looked bad but the biggest thing that stood out was my big lion was on the sand bed breathing heavy. I dipped a few other fish for flukes and came up with nothing. I had also added a new wave maker so I figured the Lion was tired from swimming against current. I took out power head but that didn’t help.
After several large water changes and nothing helping the corals or Lion I thought about the scrubber. I remember reading about the O2 saturation issues with recirculating. I hooked up the second skimmer to draw pure ambient air and opened a window to get fresh air in. This is not normally ideal due to the current heat, but in basement it’s not that big of issue.
Not 24 hours later the corals were open and the Lion is completely fine again, swimming around with slow respirations. My eel also started eating much more aggressively that she has in the past few months, coincidentally when I added the Co2 scrubber in recirculating fashion.
I think in my case adding the second skimmer brought the air to water gas exchange closer to equilibrium but with recirculating this was detrimental because there was no new O2 entering the system.
This will obviously not pertain to everyone running recirculating, my tank is pretty heavily stocked and with glass lids so most gas comes in via skimmer.
I don’t believe there is a hobby grade test that is accurate enough to measure O2 saturation but I found this extremely interesting, as this was clearly an issue I was experiencing.
I now keep window open, AC has to fight a little more but that’s alright, with one skimmer recirculating and the other pulling ambient air (with window open) I am having great pH results and corals and fish are able to breath again!
This whole ordeal lasted about 14 days, from hooking second skimmer , up to seeing negative results to fixing.
I will state again though, tank looks better than before running the recirculating skimmer initially, I would urge people doing this to run their skimmer without the scrubber and see if there is a response in the tank from getting more oxygen.
Fun times.
160 gallons, lids on DT, air exchange is probably mostly through skimmer.
I was running a Lifereef skimmer through a Co2 scrubber in recirculating fashion. Getting amazing results increased growth and had about 0.3-0.4 increase in pH.
Recently started having nutrient issues so I decided to throw on another skimmer I had laying around. I set this skimmer to draw air from the collection cup of the Lifereef, so although the air wasn’t going directly through a reactor it was pulling air that had been through a reactor at one point.
I had another pH bump and less of a dip at night, also nutrients are raising much slower so I was very happy.
Couple of days passed and my corals looked bad but the biggest thing that stood out was my big lion was on the sand bed breathing heavy. I dipped a few other fish for flukes and came up with nothing. I had also added a new wave maker so I figured the Lion was tired from swimming against current. I took out power head but that didn’t help.
After several large water changes and nothing helping the corals or Lion I thought about the scrubber. I remember reading about the O2 saturation issues with recirculating. I hooked up the second skimmer to draw pure ambient air and opened a window to get fresh air in. This is not normally ideal due to the current heat, but in basement it’s not that big of issue.
Not 24 hours later the corals were open and the Lion is completely fine again, swimming around with slow respirations. My eel also started eating much more aggressively that she has in the past few months, coincidentally when I added the Co2 scrubber in recirculating fashion.
I think in my case adding the second skimmer brought the air to water gas exchange closer to equilibrium but with recirculating this was detrimental because there was no new O2 entering the system.
This will obviously not pertain to everyone running recirculating, my tank is pretty heavily stocked and with glass lids so most gas comes in via skimmer.
I don’t believe there is a hobby grade test that is accurate enough to measure O2 saturation but I found this extremely interesting, as this was clearly an issue I was experiencing.
I now keep window open, AC has to fight a little more but that’s alright, with one skimmer recirculating and the other pulling ambient air (with window open) I am having great pH results and corals and fish are able to breath again!
This whole ordeal lasted about 14 days, from hooking second skimmer , up to seeing negative results to fixing.
I will state again though, tank looks better than before running the recirculating skimmer initially, I would urge people doing this to run their skimmer without the scrubber and see if there is a response in the tank from getting more oxygen.
Fun times.
