How much CO2 am I venting outdoors?

[salty joe]

IDK if this would be straightforward or terribly complicated for an expert...over my head for sure. If it is straightforward, I am wondering about what percentage of CO2 I'm venting.

I have the effluent from my calcium reactor flowing into a length of 2" PVC, the bottom of which is capped with a few small holes drilled in the cap. An airstone that's fed with outdoor air is inside the 2" PVC and it raises the effluent pH from about 7 to 7.6. The KH of the effluent is about 25.

I don't want that CO2 that's blowing off in my fishroom, so I vented it outside.

Just wondering how much CO2 I'm venting which I could get at least in terms of bubbles. No idea what the volume of a bubble might be...Oh-Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[James M]

How manny bubbles are you producing ??
Happy thanksgiving!

 

[Stigigemla]

If everything work as it should exactly the amount of CO2 you are carrying home is gone into your air.
You add the CO2 to water in the reactor and a little CO2 is directly into the air.
The rest is coming with the solved calcium into the tank. When the corals have precipitaded it into the calcium the surplus CO2 is left to the air. I know that because the pH in the tank has stabilized itself and the calcium in the coral skeletons has nearly exactly the same chemical composition as the calcium reactor media. (It might be a little change in the level of strontium and minor and trace elements).

 

[salty joe]

I'm definitely removing some CO2 from the calcium reactor effluent before the effluent enters the tank. It amounts to a slow leak of CO2 in the worst place possible-my fish room. It was easy enough to vent it outside, so I did.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The CO2 still in the water is likely far more than the CO2 that off gasses. How high is the pH getting in the effluent?

In a 10 x 10 x 8 foot room (800 cubic feet or 22,653 L) , there is about 400 ppm x 22653 L = 9 L of CO2 gas.

One bubble might be 0.25 mL, so 1000 bubbles will add 250 mL of gas.

A whole CO2 cylinder (say, 10 pounds of CO2) contains about 103 moles of CO2, or 2310 L of pure CO2. That would double the CO2 level in your fish room 2310/9 = 257 times.

 

[salty joe]

The pH of the effluent is about 7 and I raise it to about 7.6.

How big a deal is doubling the CO2? I would have thought 10 lb. of CO2 in a small room would absolutely crash a tank, maybe even suffocate a person.

If I wasted a couple hours venting an insignificant amount of CO2, at least my heart was in the right place.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The pH of the effluent is about 7 and I raise it to about 7.6.

How big a deal is doubling the CO2? I would have thought 10 lb. of CO2 in a small room would absolutely crash a tank, maybe even suffocate a person.

If I wasted a couple hours venting an insignificant amount of CO2, at least my heart was in the right place.

It would, certainly. CO2 rising about 10x is a substantial problem for people. 257 x will kill you.