The affects of the restriction of air to skimmer and Co2 scrubber

[1guydude]

O. Ur pulling air through ur skimmer air inlet to ur reactor. I see now im sorry. Took me a minute. Lol
D

 

[Benzophun]

O. Ur pulling air through ur skimmer air inlet to ur reactor. I see now im sorry. Took me a minute. Lol
D

Pulling air into the skimmer through the scrubber first. Tagging along for this convo, been wondering the same thing.

 

[Dryanimtt]

Yeah, the only true resolution would be to get a air pump to push air into the Inlet or get a vacuum air pump to pull air through the scrubber to the skimmer (placed between outlet and skimmer). Likely the latter so you can have the Inlet pulling moisturized air from somewhere. Or like what @ReefBeta is talking about with the sodium hydroxide reactor. But to put simply @slewrock1 has this figured out already.

@slewrock1 how are you keeping your scrubber pulling moisturized air with that setup?

 

[Dryanimtt]

So I bought an air pump and will be here in a few days. Will be rigging it up to the Inlet of the scrubber. I'll try to get some before and after pics of the water height/ bubble production of the skimmer to show how big the difference is.

 

[R-balljunkie]

any photo's of the maxxspect jump setup w/ scrubber??

 

[Dryanimtt]

Thanks for reminding me. I will update with the pics tomorrow

 

[zmerlynn]

The part that I find wild is that watching the BRS videos on the CO2 scrubbers, they talk about using a solenoid control on a wye as a pH control. But my skimmer behaves so differently with the scrubber on than off - how would you even tune it for this configuration? I popped my CO2 scrubber off tonight to see how much effect it was really having, and it filled almost immediately.

Does anyone have a reasonable build for pH control with a co2 scrubber? Is finding a different reactor with a larger outlet the best approach? I’m not sure I’m committed enough to scrubbing to deal with an air pump as well - the fussiness of adding that might actually push me to figuring out how to get an air line to the outside.

 

[Dryanimtt]

To be honest I've gone as far as boring out the hole in my reactor and putting a bigger hose on it, and nothing changed. The only way I've seen to get the best performance out of your skimmer while scrubbing is to put a inline air vacuum pump between the outlet of the scrubber to the skimmer.

 

[dmy535]

Ya that’s partly why I purchased the ice cap co2 scrubber... but recently noticed same thing. So I opened the second airline filter cap on my RO skimmer and that helped. Grande it pulls more are from that tube than the co2 line... but thinking of hooking them together with a T

 

[Reefer Reboot]

Maybe this could help,

(Simplified drawing) Air pump, to airstone in first filter bowl filled with water, to second filter bowl filled with CO2 absorbent media, to skimmer air inlet.
Easy setup that worked for me.

Hope this helps.

 

[bbpros2b]

Maybe this could help,

(Simplified drawing) Air pump, to airstone in first filter bowl filled with water, to second filter bowl filled with CO2 absorbent media, to skimmer air inlet.
Easy setup that worked for me.

Hope this helps.

What kind of air pump did you use. I think most people need to understand that u must get an air pump strong enough to not only keep up with skimmer but to add extra air to skimmer

 

[Reefer Reboot]

What kind of air pump did you use. I think most people need to understand that u must get an air pump strong enough to not only keep up with skimmer but to add extra air to skimmer

More than enough. Drawing air through a long line using just the vacuum developed by the venturi is much harder to do than using a positive pressure pump to push the air through. As long as you're getting the CFM air velocity to the skimmer as the venturi could provide, you can tee off the air line for other uses or just bleed it off.