DMan
Active Member
So a few weeks back I picked up some soda lime to just try. I was curious to see what affect it would have on ph. I was expecting a little rise as I use alot of surface agitation. There are plenty of windows open as well. My regular ph has always sat between 8.1-8.2 during day and 7.8-7.9 at night. These values do not bother at all. And im not obsessed with raising it. But after trying it I definitely have questions.
Within a few hours of installing the soda lime there was a slight increase. By that night the ph had reached close to 8.27 and over night the ph only dropped to about 8.0. After a few days the ph settled in and stayed at 8.3 (8.35) daytime and only dropped to 8.1(8.15) at night. I was impressed that the product worked so well but also surprised to see how much the ph climbed. The soda lime was supposed to 4 to 6 weeks and mine was exhausted by week 4.
So far everything makes sense to me. Instead of spending money on soda lime I thought I would try feeding my skimmer with air from outside. I had to trial and error it a bit to get the right size piping to allow enough air flow. And ended up with a 1.5" pvc pipe almost to the skimmer where the skimmer tube connected.
I thought for sure I would see a difference and the ph would rise again. It seemed to me like the same thing as the soda lime. The soda lime absorbed the co2 and was placed before the skimmer air intake. The line from outside should have fed the skimmer with air and hopefully no co2. But to my surprised the ph has barely rose. At night it has dropped again below 8.0 amd as low as 7.7 and the ph has only climbed to 8.2 at the most.
The obvious question is why did I get different results. Is it because my apartment is so full of co2 that only by forcing that air through soda lime does anything beneficial.
Am I maybe not getting enough outside air into the skimmer, although it is running normally.
Why would soda lime work and outside fresh air doesn't?
Within a few hours of installing the soda lime there was a slight increase. By that night the ph had reached close to 8.27 and over night the ph only dropped to about 8.0. After a few days the ph settled in and stayed at 8.3 (8.35) daytime and only dropped to 8.1(8.15) at night. I was impressed that the product worked so well but also surprised to see how much the ph climbed. The soda lime was supposed to 4 to 6 weeks and mine was exhausted by week 4.
So far everything makes sense to me. Instead of spending money on soda lime I thought I would try feeding my skimmer with air from outside. I had to trial and error it a bit to get the right size piping to allow enough air flow. And ended up with a 1.5" pvc pipe almost to the skimmer where the skimmer tube connected.
I thought for sure I would see a difference and the ph would rise again. It seemed to me like the same thing as the soda lime. The soda lime absorbed the co2 and was placed before the skimmer air intake. The line from outside should have fed the skimmer with air and hopefully no co2. But to my surprised the ph has barely rose. At night it has dropped again below 8.0 amd as low as 7.7 and the ph has only climbed to 8.2 at the most.
The obvious question is why did I get different results. Is it because my apartment is so full of co2 that only by forcing that air through soda lime does anything beneficial.
Am I maybe not getting enough outside air into the skimmer, although it is running normally.
Why would soda lime work and outside fresh air doesn't?
