We all know that our aquariums can cause humidity issues, in our homes. While these humidity issues can be fixed, fairly easily, please use some caution in doing so. Here's our story.
We have a lil' over 300 gallons of aquariums, all on the main floor of our home and our humidity level was outrageously high, at around 80%. We were starting to get some mold in some areas and finally decided it was time to do something about it. So, after doing about a week of research on dehumidifiers, I decided on a Soleus 50 pint unit. The instructions say to run it, on continuous operation, for the first 24 hours, instead of using the timer or humidstat controller. I can see, in most homes, this wouldn't create an issue, as most homes wouldn't have an initial humidity of 80%. So, I plugged it in, at about 9PM, Friday evening. Saturday morning, our humidity was down to 40%. Within a couple of hours, I started feeling ill and started experiencing shortness of breath. By noon, I felt like I was near death! I could barely breath, my extremities were tingling, close to being numb and I had a very bad cough that just wouldn't quit! So, Angie took me to minor emergency. By the time we got there, I was begging for oxygen as I felt that no matter how much I inhaled, I wasn't getting enough oxygen. They did give me a breathing treatment, which helped, temporarily. While there, Madison started showing similar symptoms. After we got home, Angie started showing symptoms and both our dog and cat had puked, several times, in the home, while we were gone. This morning is the first time I've been out of bed, since returning from minor emergency, Saturday afternoon. My oldest daughter, Amber, came over to take care of us, Saturday night and brought us her humidifier...lol.
The doctor believes that the root cause of all of this was the sudden HUGE drop in humidity. It's something that I didn't even consider, when setting up the dehumidifier. Instructions said to run continuously for 24 hours, so I did, without a thought. Yesterday, we actually had a humidifier running all day. When we do restart the dehumidifier, I'm going to do so very cautiously, dropping the humidity in the home very slowly! Back to the credo "Nothing good in this hobby happens fast."
We have a lil' over 300 gallons of aquariums, all on the main floor of our home and our humidity level was outrageously high, at around 80%. We were starting to get some mold in some areas and finally decided it was time to do something about it. So, after doing about a week of research on dehumidifiers, I decided on a Soleus 50 pint unit. The instructions say to run it, on continuous operation, for the first 24 hours, instead of using the timer or humidstat controller. I can see, in most homes, this wouldn't create an issue, as most homes wouldn't have an initial humidity of 80%. So, I plugged it in, at about 9PM, Friday evening. Saturday morning, our humidity was down to 40%. Within a couple of hours, I started feeling ill and started experiencing shortness of breath. By noon, I felt like I was near death! I could barely breath, my extremities were tingling, close to being numb and I had a very bad cough that just wouldn't quit! So, Angie took me to minor emergency. By the time we got there, I was begging for oxygen as I felt that no matter how much I inhaled, I wasn't getting enough oxygen. They did give me a breathing treatment, which helped, temporarily. While there, Madison started showing similar symptoms. After we got home, Angie started showing symptoms and both our dog and cat had puked, several times, in the home, while we were gone. This morning is the first time I've been out of bed, since returning from minor emergency, Saturday afternoon. My oldest daughter, Amber, came over to take care of us, Saturday night and brought us her humidifier...lol.
The doctor believes that the root cause of all of this was the sudden HUGE drop in humidity. It's something that I didn't even consider, when setting up the dehumidifier. Instructions said to run continuously for 24 hours, so I did, without a thought. Yesterday, we actually had a humidifier running all day. When we do restart the dehumidifier, I'm going to do so very cautiously, dropping the humidity in the home very slowly! Back to the credo "Nothing good in this hobby happens fast."
