ATS with a skimmer

[ReefCheef]

I’m having an algae turf scrubber made with a port to connect my skimmer air intake line too. I’m operating under the assumption that the air inside the unit will contain less co2 than the rest of my home.

So I’ve been struggling with aggressively low pH (7.55 - 7.6 at night). I live in a concrete and glass condo building so running the skimmer line outside is not an option. Running an ERV/HRV is not an option, and in the Summer it’s simply too hot to leave the doors open.

Outside of water changes and alk/ca dosing, I’m not a fan of “replenishables” in reefing. I’ve decided to try a co2 scrubber in the meantime, but I have a large tank and the idea of spending an equal amount of money on co2 media as salt just doesnt feel like a realistic long term solution to me.

Going to give the scrubber idea a try and will report back my findings. Just wanted to put it out there to the community in case anyone else is having similar pH challenges.

 

[GARRIGA]

Not sure about the air having less CO2 but the water will and perhaps that will reduce overall system CO2 allowing the removal of the CO2 scrubber. Could run the algal scrubber post skimmer to remove CO2 prior to entering main DT.

I"m doing something similar but instead of a skimmer, I have a large media bed that acts as denitrification and that running through an improvised algal scrubber to remove CO2 and introduce oxygen during the day. I run it 12 hours a day and still working on establishing the algae which is now finally turning green. Having a refugium would have been optimal but not functional.

Once it's got a lush bed of green algae then I'll start conducting water test including ICP.

 

[blatherdrift]

That's interesting. I never thought about trying to scrub co2 using an ATS. I run a Tunze macro algae reactor. I wonder if it'd help to feed its output into my skimmer chamber instead of the return pump chamber. Maybe I'll try that out.

 

[GARRIGA]

My PH rose during the experiment but the execution was flawed so I took it down. Going to try with a larger system and an actual ATS or refugium. Have done this in freshwater with both green water and plants and PH stayed higher when lights on 24/7. Going to test that part as well. This would help elevate PH during daylight as well. Algae never suffered from constant lighting nor did the water plants employed. I have a theory that neither would macro algae. Only one way to know for sure. Test the theory.