Does your tank get fresh air and does it need it?

[Raj]

I don't think it is important at all. I feel if you have enough oxygen to breath, so do the fish.
I have not tested my pH in probably 30 years so I don't know what it is but I don't think pH is that important up to a point of course so I doubt fresh air will do anything beneficial.

Of course fresh air can't hurt as I want it myself but if your tank is in a place where you feel fine, so do the fish.
Mine are also in my Man cave and there are no windows. Everything is spawning and my corals are all smiling. The tank was in my basement in my last house for 40 years and I had no problems, no diseases, no deaths, no nothing except of course from jumping out or old age.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but when I recently upgraded tanks, I had my old and new tanks side by side. While prepping the new tank, I stopped doing maintenance on the old - like no water changes, no dosing, just feeding to keep the inhabitants alive while running only a heater, vortech pumps, and lights. I figured I'd have everything moved over to the new tank in a few weeks, so it wasn't going to hurt anything. Those few weeks became over 4 months, and when I finally moved my inhabitants to their new home, I tested the old tank's water just to see how bad it became. The Ph was down to 7.3, and this was during the day. What's funny is all the fish, snails, hermits, corals, peppermint and cleaner shrimp were all fine. Kind of makes you wonder!

 

[fishybizzness]

I live in the Caribbean so the only time my windows are closed is during hurricanes.. I'm thankful that co2 is one less thing I have to worry about .

 

[Steve1500]

I ran a line outside to pull fresh air into my skimmer. Then a couple weeks ago, the temp in northern Ohio got into the high 30's / low 40's. My Inkbird at around 3:00 in the morning (why would it alarm during the day?) went off alarming me that my heaters had been on for 12 hours straight. I realized I was pulling cold air from outside and had to disconnect that hose from my skimmer so I didn't lose so much heat. As much as I would love to run my skimmer air intake outside, as the temperature cools off, that is less of a possibility. So during the winter months, I will just have to accept that my reef will run 7.8 to 8.0 during the days, without the ability to open windows or get fresh air.

 

[Steve1500]

I ran a line outside to pull fresh air into my skimmer. Then a couple weeks ago, the temp in northern Ohio got into the high 30's / low 40's. My Inkbird at around 3:00 in the morning (why would it alarm during the day?) went off alarming me that my heaters had been on for 12 hours straight. I realized I was pulling cold air from outside and had to disconnect that hose from my skimmer so I didn't lose so much heat. As much as I would love to run my skimmer air intake outside, as the temperature cools off, that is less of a possibility. So during the winter months, I will just have to accept that my reef will run 7.8 to 8.0 during the days, without the ability to open windows or get fresh air.

I live in Dayton and ran into similar problems. What size line (diameter) do you run and do you connect it to the intake right by the cup? If you don't mind, can you send a pic?

 

[Flippers4pups]

For those that don't know, C02 is heavier than air. As for our homes, i don't know if it's a factor.

I would be interested in those in colder climates how running a air line outside to a skimmer intake effects the water temperature. I see there's been some talk about it.

I'm contemplating running one soon here in Missouri. The two options are up into the attic (Gets pretty hot here during summer months) or straight out the side of the house (Gets pretty cold here during winter months)

 

[JAMSOURY]

Anyone have any problems with temperature when pulling fresh cold winter air from outside?

 

[Borg]

I bought a co2 scrubber from brs and I had no results

Here’s how I maintain my ph in my 180 gallon..
I mix 1 cup ph buffer in a 5 gallon bucket of rodi water. I then dose 4000 ml a day
I’ve been maintaining 8.3

Coral box WiFi doser
Milwaukee ph probe. I will be updating the probe to a Neptune ph probe

 

[ca1ore]

Air exchange is important for corals, fish .... and humans. I gave up with fresh air to the skimmer and CO2 adsorbing media a long time ago. Just didn’t make much of a difference. I do open windows whenever possible and have a blower in the basement fish room. Sometimes the weather requires the house to be closed up, but mostly I can keep the air turned over.

 

[Vette67]

I live in Dayton and ran into similar problems. What size line (diameter) do you run and do you connect it to the intake right by the cup? If you don't mind, can you send a pic?

This is what it looks like when the outside line is hooked up. I believe the smaller diameter vinyl hose is 7/16" (might be 3/8") and the bigger one that actually goes outside (on the other end of the black reducer), is 1/2". Is this what you were looking to see?

 

[Dburr1014]

My skimmer gets air from the garage from right near a very leaky garage door. I said mine gets a little because I have central AC so the windows are closed in summer and heating in the winter so windows are closed. my windows don't get open very often. but the air getting pulled into the skimmer keep my pH around 8.2 and is constant, I'm happy with that.

 

[RalphTech]

I asked my wife to stop smoking, don't burn food anymore and keep the window cracked a little so the pH rises.
Anyone want an EVO 13.5?

 

[clown99]

My cheap CO2 scrubber. Now that I go skimmerless, the scrubbed air goes to an air stone in the refugium. PH increased 0.05 - 0.08.

 

[H3rm1tCr@b]

Whenever it’s warm I try to open the window. It seems to help a lot with fish breathing and maybe even coral extension

 

[Uncle99]

Yup, outside, low CO2, for me, increases PH .1

 

[Malevolent]

(150 gallon) Well I have tried everything here in Alaska. The temps make it so you can’t open windows in the winter and having two small dogs along with myself in a air tight house doesn’t help. I have tried everything from a 1/4” hose up to 3/4” that I ran outside to my skimmer and even a bulkreef scrubber (single and double) with not any noticeable difference. I have plenty of water movement With 4 from return pump and 4 from closed loop and 2 gyro pumps at each end with one gyro in the refugium and my skimmer.
my PH is lucky if It gets to 7.8 and that includes during the summer. I use the apex, Hanna and API for testing. I use kalk in my ATO but my Alk climbs to high 12-14. Any ideas?

 

[southerntnreefer]

Today I had the window open. Just got too cold.so I shut it... you can see where I opened it today. No coral yet sadly,but developing patterns to make a master plan.

 

[JaimeIsNew]

I had a low pH a couple months ago and searched for the reason why. I found this article http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rhf/#:~:text=A common cause of low,of acid to the tank about pH issues in a tank and did the test to determine if the reason for my low pH was gas exchange between the air in my home and the tank.

Any idea why this stopped being issued as of 2009??

 

[Flippers4pups]

Any idea why this stopped being issued as of 2009??

It's still a thing to use that method to confirm what may be causing the ph to be low. May be not talked about as much. As with back then, the ways to correct low ph are the same.

 

[Brian_68]

I have a CO2 monitor in the house and when it reads 800 ppm or more give or take I open more windows. Typically for the CO2 to stay that low in my house I have a couple windows cracked an inch year round based on the number of people in the house. If it goes above 1000 ppm it is about a .2 ph difference from fresh air. I also run the skimmer intake outside and that helps a little but not nearly what open windows do.

 

[tippin.turtle]

I'm also in a basement with no possibility of getting an outside source of fresh air.
I purchased the BRS reactor and at first left one end of the canister "open to air".
My media lasted only 4-5 days. I then went with the "recirculation method" and have achieved
25 days before requiring media replacement.
I think it may be possible to get even more longevity from the media by keeping it in a drier state.
To reach 25 days I had to drain the canister daily to rid the excessive moisture caused from the "recirculation method". Forget adding the teaspoon of water to the canister!
I purchased another RO canister, the shorter 5 inch. I now have these plumbed together using the shorter 5 inch as an air humidifier/water trap and allowing the media canister to remain completely dry.
Im curious to see if I can surpass 25 days as I believe I would have; had my media not retained so much moisture. My PH with the scrubber ranges from 8.0-8.3