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

[Tom Giddens]

A little skeptical myself. Have tried everything to raise PH. Started with a co2 scrubber, that worked fairly descent. Then I started recycling skimmer air into the scrubber to try and get better life from the media (didn't make much difference). Converted over to fresh air from outside, that sent me backwards. Now I'm scrubbing the fresh air but not seeing much difference. Algae scrubber doesn't seem to be producing much oxygen either. Right now I'm dropping down to 7.96 at night. So if PH is any measurement of fresh air, my apex isn't measuring any difference.

Isn't a refugium with the light on at night suppose to keep PH from dropping at night?

 

[Mical]

Does your PH drop at night?

Yes, the numbers I posted above are the lows (at early AM) to the highs (in the evenings) Both of my tanks reach highs right around 10pm & lows at 8am

 

[Mical]

Can you elaborate more on this please

Sure. The reactor is a BRS mini https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-gfo-carbon-reactor-5-single.html & I fill it with soda lime https://www.shopmedvet.com/product/soda-lime-3-lb-bag/anesthesia-respiratory#minicart_a .

The input of the reactor is open to home/room air, then I ran a line from the output of the reactor to the air input line of my skimmer.

 

[Mical]

Isn't a refugium with the light on at night suppose to keep PH from dropping at night?

They do but due to CO2 build up in some homes & the number of people, pets etc can elevate CO2 in closed up homes and refugiums can't keep up.

 

[Tom Giddens]

I'm in Maine so I don't have the option of keeping a window open year round and don't have much interest in drilling through the wall to the outside since I have a feeling the small hole would eventually get blocked by snow or water and freeze anyway.

I did buy a BRS co2 scrubber and it certainly helps maintain a stable and elevated PH when the house is closed up. The frustrating part of this solution is that the air going through the media really needs to have some moisture in it. The instructions state to include a tablespoon of water in the bottom of the reactor but that evaporates within a day or two and it's just silly to have to pop that canister open every 3 days and add more water. I've seen some people have run their scrubber intake to a tapped port they add to their skimmer cup so it's essentially recirculating humid air.

I didn't have the stomach to possible ruin a skimmer cup so I took a mason jar and drilled 2 holes in the top for barbed fittings. One of the fittings feeds the scrubber from above the jar and the second one has a short piece of tubing that extends below the water level in the jar. This has proven entertaining to be because it sounds like someone is taking a never-ending bong hit. It seems to work and I'm now going to give it a try without the tubing extended into the water to see if that alone has the same results without the stoner sound

Regardless of how you approach it I think having a stable level, whether 8 or 8.3, is beneficial to the overall stability of the tank.

Interesting, do you have a refugium with macros and the lights on at night?

Sure. The reactor is a BRS mini https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-gfo-carbon-reactor-5-single.html & I fill it with soda lime https://www.shopmedvet.com/product/soda-lime-3-lb-bag/anesthesia-respiratory#minicart_a .

The input of the reactor is open to home/room air, then I ran a line from the output of the reactor to the air input line of my skimmer.

So it does not need a pump because the skimmer pulls the room air threw the media?

 

[Mical]

Interesting, do you have a refugium with macros and the lights on at night?

So it does not need a pump because the skimmer pulls the room air threw the media?

Yes I have refugium w/chaeto in both tanks with lights on them

No put needed, the skimmer sucks room air through the reactor prior to going into the skimmer

 

[Adamantium]

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

I like how clean that is, but I achieved the same with a mason jar. Just punched two holes in it and ran the hose into and out of it. Works like a charm. Yours looks much better, of course haha

 

[Adamantium]

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

Also, dumb question, but what direction does your media get used up? Top to bottom, or bottom to top? I got mine about 2 weeks ago, and can’t really tell if any has been used up yet.

 

[highest_tides]

Yes fresh air is good. Co2 not so good. Oxygen good. Most things we like need to breath

I just thought of a slight down side :
When it gets very humid my tank temp climbs a lot so Its A/C time.
Im not sure if A/C counts as fresh air. Prob not.

Nahh...just recuirulates the homes air

 

[Mical]

Also, dumb question, but what direction does your media get used up? Top to bottom, or bottom to top? I got mine about 2 weeks ago, and can’t really tell if any has been used up yet.

Mine gets used from bottom to top

 

[Ef4life]

I have a small pico tank, the ph has been lower than my larger reef in the same room lately. I have no skimmer on the pico. Could adding an air stone into the pico help with raising ph? It wouldn’t really effect evaporation or salt creep with how it’s set up.

 

[sghera64]

I pipe it in to my skimmer and a dedicated air stone.
I see a 0.2 pH increase and after a few weeks fuller corals. I also keep the door open the the fish room at night and blow air I to the room with a fan.

I see an improvement if I keep the air in the fish room moving. At night the tank seems to give off a lot of CO2, and air movement in the fish room makes a big difference.

 

[Dj A-Ron]

I’m a total noob to saltwater but these are the few things that I have been experimenting with and my findings. I have a unique situation where I have a high tech planted fresh water aquarium running C02 injection in the same room as my reef tank. Let me say that it has been a challenge. I do have an Apex on the tank so am able to monitor PH. While my tank was cycling I had a PH as low as 7.5. As things stabilized the PH rose to about 7.6-7.7 but couldn’t get it any higher. I dialed back the amount of C02 being injected into my fresh water tank and that helped. It also slowed down the growth of the plants in that tank but I am okay with that. When we had nice weather I’d open the windows in the house and was able to get a PH of about 7.8-7.9 so I knew I had a C02 issue to resolve. I tried different things in steps. I did all of this before even adding fish. I first just turned on the skimmer to break it in and see if it helped the PH. This helped a little seemed to stabilize the PH fluctuations more than actually raise it. I monitored for a week and then tried adding an air stone to the sump. After monitoring for a week I noticed that this did nothing for the PH. I then added a BRS C02 scrubber. This made my PH jump up to 8.0-8.1 but this was also with the windows open. After about a week the C02 dropped dramatically. I changed out the C02 media and the PH jumped back up but really didn’t seem stable. I then tried the recirculating method on the skimmer and scrubber. This didn’t seem to help much and just filled the air line going to the scrubber with moisture and water. Had to drain the water from the line every day. I then tried running an air line out the side of my house to the scrubber and then to the skimmer. This seems to be the most stable of all of the options. My PH seems to stay around 7.9 with all of the windows closed in the house and if I’m able to open the windows it will sit at about 8.0-8.1. The C02 media was only lasting about a week before running the air line outside. I also found that if I butt a little bit of RODI water to the bottom of the scrubber canister every day it makes the media last much longer. I’m going on week 3 and it’s still lasting. However, I live in Michigan and it’s starting to get cold so I may have to discontinue the use of the air line outside soon. I am 3 months in on my reef tank and now have 6 fish and some corals in the tank and all seems to be doing well. Having the live stock in seems to be helping everything stabilize. I have a couple ideas on how to improve the recirculating skimmer set up and avoid the moisture build up. I have also had very low alkalinity in this tank for some reason. I have very slowly been bring that up which seems to be helping the PH stabilize as well. In the future I’m going to set up a refugium and try playing with lighting schedules in the fuge to offset the times that the C02 injection is running in the FW tank.

 

[Vette67]

Where did you get L/min gauge?

 

[Joeg]

I do have a section of the sump with a light and some chaeto that I do run on an opposite schedule from the display but I've found in this build that the tank is so efficient that even overfeeding 3 cubes for 4 small fish each day does not result in slightly elevated levels of nitrate and phosphate. I just yesterday started to dose both to see if I can get them raised a bit which should help the chaeto grow. This is the first time I've ever had this problem so obviously dosing nitrate and phosphate is a bit new to me and I'm going slowly.

Interesting, do you have a refugium with macros and the lights on at night?

 

[sp1187]

questions like this make my head hurt.
basement tank.
does it matter? I don't know. I never thought about it.
no furnace, boiler, so no duct work, baseboard heat.
does it matter? I don't know? heads hurting more.
should I have the air quality tested?
wait... I spend a third of my awake time down there.
am I ok? how's my ph? my head hurts.


edit: what if the "fresh air" is worse than the current air? if I were to add an outside air exchange, do they have filters? what if my neighbor is burning leaves.... again?
what if my other neighbor is having another bon fire party I'm not invited to?
my head hurts.

 

[GillMeister]

My tanks with the windows closed will run 7.8-8.0 (via Apex) Windows open 8.1-8.4 . But since this is Minnesota windows are usually closed 8 months per year. We do have a whole house air exchanger and that helps but I also added CO2 scrubbers to both and with windows closed Ph runs 8.1 - 8.3 daily.

Similar circumstances for me. Also in Minnie. The difference being that bump you see in pH was short lived. It lasts for one week after replacing the soda lime. I wish I had a good way to plumb fresh air. The air exchanger cranked to 11 isn't making a difference, either.

 

[Mical]

Similar circumstances for me. Also in Minnie. The difference being that bump you see in pH was short lived. It lasts for one week after replacing the soda lime. I wish I had a good way to plumb fresh air. The air exchanger cranked to 11 isn't making a difference, either.

Next time you load soda lime add a little ROX carbon to the bottom of media canister, I found it helps extend the life of media. Weird that you only get a weeks bump. My levels stay up until media is about expired.

 

[JumboShrimp]

If it's a FOWLR, I tend to vote "No" on this one.

 

[Reefr]

I’m a total noob to saltwater but these are the few things that I have been experimenting with and my findings. I have a unique situation where I have a high tech planted fresh water aquarium running C02 injection in the same room as my reef tank. Let me say that it has been a challenge. I do have an Apex on the tank so am able to monitor PH. While my tank was cycling I had a PH as low as 7.5. As things stabilized the PH rose to about 7.6-7.7 but couldn’t get it any higher. I dialed back the amount of C02 being injected into my fresh water tank and that helped. It also slowed down the growth of the plants in that tank but I am okay with that. When we had nice weather I’d open the windows in the house and was able to get a PH of about 7.8-7.9 so I knew I had a C02 issue to resolve. I tried different things in steps. I did all of this before even adding fish. I first just turned on the skimmer to break it in and see if it helped the PH. This helped a little seemed to stabilize the PH fluctuations more than actually raise it. I monitored for a week and then tried adding an air stone to the sump. After monitoring for a week I noticed that this did nothing for the PH. I then added a BRS C02 scrubber. This made my PH jump up to 8.0-8.1 but this was also with the windows open. After about a week the C02 dropped dramatically. I changed out the C02 media and the PH jumped back up but really didn’t seem stable. I then tried the recirculating method on the skimmer and scrubber. This didn’t seem to help much and just filled the air line going to the scrubber with moisture and water. Had to drain the water from the line every day. I then tried running an air line out the side of my house to the scrubber and then to the skimmer. This seems to be the most stable of all of the options. My PH seems to stay around 7.9 with all of the windows closed in the house and if I’m able to open the windows it will sit at about 8.0-8.1. The C02 media was only lasting about a week before running the air line outside. I also found that if I butt a little bit of RODI water to the bottom of the scrubber canister every day it makes the media last much longer. I’m going on week 3 and it’s still lasting. However, I live in Michigan and it’s starting to get cold so I may have to discontinue the use of the air line outside soon. I am 3 months in on my reef tank and now have 6 fish and some corals in the tank and all seems to be doing well. Having the live stock in seems to be helping everything stabilize. I have a couple ideas on how to improve the recirculating skimmer set up and avoid the moisture build up. I have also had very low alkalinity in this tank for some reason. I have very slowly been bring that up which seems to be helping the PH stabilize as well. In the future I’m going to set up a refugium and try playing with lighting schedules in the fuge to offset the times that the C02 injection is running in the FW tank.

Beautiful aquascaping, well done