Air exchange

[LRT]

Whose ever build you are talking about, it wasn’t me.

You must be thinking of jimmy or bill or Jeff or someone else on the forum.

My bad I was thinking of @Sisterlimonpot
Build!

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Lol if it not you that has exhaust fan hooked up to humidity controller in some insane build i seen than I apologize to whoever build that was!
If you do have an exhaust fan hooked up like that then I'd like to know what you did lol

I have abandoned that setup and removed the sensor in way of an on off switch, the exhaust fan stays on 24/7.

The reason was that even on the lowest setting, the humidity was extremely noticeable when I walked into the room. I have every intention of sourcing a better sensor but it's not high on the priority list.

I stayed out of this thread because it veered into using Co2 scrubber to raise pH. And personally I try to avoid consumables like Co2 scrubber media at all costs.

Funny thing, the other day I was just talking to Tom @TMB about this very thing, and he did what Hunter @evolved did and ran a hose to the attic. His chief concern against running a hose outside was fear of pesticides getting sucked into the tube. I'm sure there's some validity to that claim, but the risk seems fairly low. If I were to do it, attic might be the first choice but if I couldn't make that happen, a hole to the outside would be my 2nd.

I would first consider getting fresh outside air to raise pH before committing to an extra expense of replacing media every month.

With my house sealed up in the summer months, my pH looks a lot like everyone elses peaking out at 8.05 and getting down into 7.7 range at night.

 

[LRT]

I have abandoned that setup and removed the sensor in way of an on off switch, the exhaust fan stays on 24/7.

The reason was that even on the lowest setting, the humidity was extremely noticeable when I walked into the room. I have every intention of sourcing a better sensor but it's not high on the priority list.

I stayed out of this thread because it veered into using Co2 scrubber to raise pH. And personally I try to avoid consumables like Co2 scrubber media at all costs.

Funny thing, the other day I was just talking to Tom @TMB about this very thing, and he did what Hunter @evolved did and ran a hose to the attic. His chief concern against running a hose outside was fear of pesticides getting sucked into the tube. I'm sure there's some validity to that claim, but the risk seems fairly low. If I were to do it, attic might be the first choice but if I couldn't make that happen, a hole to the outside would be my 2nd.

I would first consider getting fresh outside air to raise pH before committing to an extra expense of replacing media every month.

With my house sealed up in the summer months, my pH looks a lot like everyone elses peaking out at 8.05 and getting down into 7.7 range at night.

Right on. The co2 scrubber was last choice for me all along. I've been playing with fresh air and opening windows and looking at things and I just felt I could achieve what I needed without one. Not saying I won't have one on hand just for back up if need be for any unforseen reason i guess. I ordered it but may not ever use it now.
Need to ger exhaust fan installed asap.
What are you doing about fresh air or are you not concerned with it?
I'm curious where skimmer lines pulling outside air puts my PH. Seems like thats all I needed to do to keep acceptable levels.

 

[TMB]

I run my skimmer intake from the attic as Jimmy (@Sisterlimonpot) said. Here are my observations from doing so:
The temp change from the outside has no affect that I can see, so I don’t think that should deter anyone.
It took some time for the outside air to have any effect, but over time has made a significant improvement.
I noticed no change in skimmer performance - I don’t think the air draw changed any. I could actually measure this if I wanted to since I have a meter to do so, but like I said skimmer performance has been unaffected.
With just the fresh air to the skimmer my PH was running 7.9 - 8.15, but I was looking for a bit higher so I added Kalk on a doser to raise it more.
The Kalk is only 150 ml per day dosed every 30 min. This is only a small amount, but made a small improvement. Now normally stays above 8 at night, high is 8.25.
I run a Carx with a fairly high demand so adding the Kalk was not a big deal, I just let it replace some of what the Carx would be doing. If you have a small system, or low demand, this might not be a good idea - so be careful with this one .
I will say that our systems are very sensitive to CO2 and changes in the level. You can see in my PH chart that I have guests I’m my home this week, and the dip is obvious. You can see the downward trend on the day they arrived.

 

[TMB]

Thought I would post a follow up to this because my house guests are gone now, and I can see an immediate uptick in PH with fewer people in the house. The new low is 8.1 today and high of 8.33.

I'm actually contemplating only dosing kalk at night to see if I can flatten the swing even more.
If I do, I'll let everyone know how it goes.

 

[vanpire]

Holy cow. 8.3 without doing anything. I started dosing Kalk using a Kalk reactor, and pH went to 8.25 which is good. When I exhaust my CO2 absorbing media, I am going to stop using the scrubber.

 

[TMB]

Yup... Just make everyone in my house hold their breath so no CO2!! ;Dead

 

[jporter17]

We also had a houseful of family over the past weekend. You can see the drop and the slow rise back to better PH. I also had to clear salt crust from the venturI so it was starved for air part of this time. I do see an improvement by moving the scrubber into the garage. Media is definitely lasting longer.

 

[vanpire]

This is what happens when I run KALK. It is super cheap and easy to do. With the CO2 scrubber, the best I could do was 8.1. Now, I am getting 8.25 and the low is about ~8.14

 

[jporter17]

Are you pushing the Kalk through the ATO system?

 

[vanpire]

Are you pushing the Kalk through the ATO system?

Not Exactly. The ATO is separate. I previously used ATO but that killed my pumps after about six months and I couldn't control the amount of ALK accurately.

HOWEVER, a long time ago, I bought a 10 gallon ATO reservoir that I never used and used it as a KALK resevoir. I did the following:

1. Got one of those computer fans and added two small round magnets.
2. Bought a magnetic stir bar
3. Use the computer fan and attached two round magnets to create a magnetic stirrer (I bought a magnetic stirrer from Amazon but it didn't work as well as the one I made)
4. Added a water solenoid and along with my Apex to refill the KALK resevoir with RO/DI water
5. Found a BRS 50 ml/min doser and connected it to my Apex to dose KALK every hour - I will replace it with the Kamoer X1 PRO II when it becomes available - currently, I dose ~450 ml/hour, every hour.
6. RODI water is auto added by APEX as needed to the KALK resevoir
7. Every hour, the stir bar stirs for 3 mins to mix everything, including newly added KALK and/or RODI water
7. I manually add ~6 tablespoon of KALK powder every other day

Very simple and cheap. It was mostly parts I had around the house. By the way, I use rare-earth high strength magnets instead of the cheap ceramic magnets in normal magnetic stirrers.

Costs:

1. Reservoir: $30 - bought used
2. Computer fan: ~$25 bought it a long time ago for another use
3. Magnets: ~$20 (bought some extras for other use a while ago - just the stir bar is new)
4. BRS doser: $20 bought used
5. Solenoid: ~ $15 from Amazon
6. Various fittings and tubing: found around the house but about $10-$15 if bought on Amazon

Kalk - BRS Kalk powder

 

[jporter17]

How much did you have to adjust either from your CA RX, or DKH dosing to account for the KALK add?

 

[vanpire]

I turned off my CARx for when I started KALK. I will likely turn it on in a few weeks as I don't think the KALK is keeping up. RIght now, my ALK is 6.9, and dropping slightly every day. It was 7.4 a week ago when I started. I started at a lower dose and increased it a few times. Can't increase it much more as I am close to my evaporation limit.

I have noticed an increase in coralline algae growth this past week and had to use a very mild muratic acid solution to clean my gyre for the very first time. Usually, a normal cleaning without acid was enough.

But I am going on vacation tomorrow for three days and don't want too many variables and changes while I am on vacation.

 

[Kjames]

Went to Home Despot got about eight palms and then 3 grow lights at $40 (20w) ... done. Don't open my windows anymore. My PH probe crapped out on my Apex and since I am going to switch to GHL I don't want to get a new one, so I can't say exactly what PH is or what CO2 levels are, but according to the NASA study, with the plants I got and the others I already had I should have enough to cover me my wife and my cat. FYI have since potted them.

Even if the CO2 consumption were negligible, the emotional/psychological benefits of having plants in your living space is reason enough to have them. It pains me to see homes without plants in them. And good on you for giving them larger pots.

 

[LRT]

Alot of great info here. Good to see alot of us are struggling with same issues and how your all handling it.
I ended up running my skimmer lines outside. I'm running a curve 5 in one sump and a 300 gallon rated eshopps skimmer in the other. Brought my Ph up to around 8. Haven't checked it at night. Just consistently around the same time everyday. I can live with it for now. Especially with these cool nights. Been leaving window open last couple night as well.
Going to have to figure something out with air axchange here when it starts getting colder possibly but most defenitely by next summer. Its way to humid in there with no fresh air or exchange in the summer for sure!
For now I think the temps are going to be on my side.