Using a skimmer as a whole room deodorizer!

[UncommonSense]

So, I’ve been running a bit of an “experiment” for the past four weeks or so…

Long story short; I got my LFS an excellent condition used ETSS 800 skimmer at the beginning of the month in a hurry when his personal 180g display tank’s skimmer kicked the bucket…

We’re running it at right around 850-900gph (observed) on a slightly undersized pump, with surprisingly excellent results!




I haven’t done a flow test for air inlet CFM yet, but this skimmer MOVES air… the cup lid also has no air vents and an airtight seal, so all the skimmer’s air is pumped out the drain fitting to a collection container…

My LFS owner gave me permission to experiment with things a bit; so I got to thinking…

The shop houses many reptiles, and their usual food… so, it tends to smell a bit “ripe” on warm days in there… why not deodorize the air?

I made a test assembly, just a fitting out of the cap of the remote skim collection container, which would have skimmer air flowing through it, releasing an unpleasant odor as it vents into the shop.

— Instead of venting skimmer air to atmosphere, I plumbed it to a spare reactor full of carbon, with excellent results! — my LFS owner just told me that his 13,000ft3 shop has had zero detectable odor (and no customers complaining about odor!) since the day after I added the carbon reactor!

I know many skimmers vent via the cup lid, but that can be adapted to plumbing still… This can be a viable option for most larger skimmers, if anyone out there is curious to try it!

Thoughts? Ideas? Feedback from your own experiences trying this?

I’m currently just waiting to see how long the ~1quart of carbon can run before any detectable odor starts creeping back into the shop!

 

[Useful_Idiot]

Bulk carbon on eBay will help keep the cost down. And I can see how that is helping with the reptile smell of the space.
In my small finished basement tank space I plumbed the air vent of the skimmer to a flexible silicone hose then to a PVC pipe to the outside. Not just for the smell, it keeps the humidity of the room much lower as well.

 

[BeanAnimal]

It works well, but traps a lot of moisture, which reduces airflow.
Carbon lasts 3-6 weeks depending on skimmer setting and how much frozen I feed.
Design in F360 and printed with ASA

 

[UncommonSense]

It works well, but traps a lot of moisture, which reduces airflow.
Carbon lasts 3-6 weeks depending on skimmer setting and how much frozen I feed.
Design in F360 and printed with ASA

That’s genius! It makes my mess of tubes and containers feel like a lot less of an accomplishment!

I’ve noticed the moisture collection aspect; the carbon reactor is starting to collect water… — my thinking there was an in-line air dryer, or a second reactor modified to be an air:water separator…. Though I haven’t gotten that far yet!

Carbon lifespan is also an excellent metric to hear; I was expecting 4-5 weeks of life out of it, but had no benchmark in this application!

 

[BeanAnimal]

Air water separation is tough at ambient pressure.

A draining design helps a bit (what I have) but capilary actions retains lot of water in the carbon and the air moving past it is always high humidity.

Using a fan to pull extra air through the media exposes the fan to moisture.

Pushing the air through at low velocity puts back pressure on the skimmer cup.

Trying to push dry air into the media and use its velocity to pull air (venturi) from the cup would d be a ridiculous amount of trial and error and require significant velocity.

Easiest thing to do? Just vent the skimmer outside. Making sure there are not traps in the line to collect moisture. It should all drain back to the cup.

 

[UncommonSense]

Air water separation is tough at ambient pressure.

A draining design helps a bit (what I have) but capilary actions retains lot of water in the carbon and the air moving past it is always high humidity.

Using a fan to pull extra air through the media exposes the fan to moisture.

Pushing the air through at low velocity puts back pressure on the skimmer cup.

Trying to push dry air into the media and use its velocity to pull air (venturi) from the cup would d be a ridiculous amount of trial and error and require significant velocity.

Hmm… interesting! I hadn’t even considered supplementary air (Or vacuum, for that matter!)…

Pushing the air through at low velocity puts back pressure on the skimmer cup.

My thinking here would be to simply use a larger surface area of carbon (I.e. 4” diameter reactor, vs. 2” diameter) to minimize back pressure in the skimmer cup… I suppose the reactor or reactor-like container could also be plumbed with a vertical run of plumbing, from the bottom of the container, possibly with a moisture reservoir and drain… this is likely too much effort, unless I can think of a tidy and easy way to make such a container…

Easiest thing to do? Just vent the skimmer outside. Making sure there are not traps in the line to collect moisture. It should all drain back to the cup.

This was my initial thought! However, the volume of air the skimmer would pull into the shop from outside during the cold night hours was a concern!

It’s still not off the table as an option, and we could always have it only vent outside during business hours only to mitigate the temperature concerns… I’ll mess around with the air recirculating via carbon for another month or so as we get into summer, then start looking into a exterior vent once the skimmer can be used to help with shop cooling passively!

Thank you for the excellent input! —it’s always greatly appreciated!