Outside Air Fixes pH Issues!

[T-J]

So, it's summer again here in Arizona. That means the house will be sealed up until October(ish), which always causes my pH to drop below 8.

I've been running a CO2 scrubber since the tank has been up, and the media just gets exhausted too fast. Today I decided to just bite the bullet and fix it.

I'm still running the scrubber, but I ran a 1/4" tubing from the inlet of the scrubber to the outside of my house. I drilled a small hole under the window sill and shoved the line through the wall. You can't see the hole from outside unless you got down on your hands and knees and looked under the sill. The hole inside the house is behind stuff, so you can't see that either.

Now I'm just monitoring it to see if the pH starts to go up, and also if I have any temperature issues. It will be pulling in air that's upwards of 110 degrees in the summer, but it has a long run to the tank, so hopefully it cools on its journey.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

watch your temps, my morton building has a lagoon and when outside temps are over 90 degrees. i have the skimmer shut down during the hot part of the day or else my temps creep up in the lagoon.

 

[Morpheosz]

Have you considered hooking up your scrubber in a recirculating design? My media lasts quite a long time.

 

[T-J]

Have you considered hooking up your scrubber in a recirculating design? My media lasts quite a long time.

I used to run it that way, but then had a near catastrophic failure and decided not to run it that way again.

 

[Bph]

Yes Temp. Will be your biggest issue.

 

[Pistondog]

So, it's summer again here in Arizona. That means the house will be sealed up until October(ish), which always causes my pH to drop below 7.

I've been running a CO2 scrubber since the tank has been up, and the media just gets exhausted too fast. Today I decided to just bite the bullet and fix it.

I'm still running the scrubber, but I ran a 1/4" tubing from the inlet of the scrubber to the outside of my house. I drilled a small hole under the window sill and shoved the line through the wall. You can't see the hole from outside unless you got down on your hands and knees and looked under the sill. The hole inside the house is behind stuff, so you can't see that either.

Now I'm just monitoring it to see if the pH starts to go up, and also if I have any temperature issues. It will be pulling in air that's upwards of 110 degrees in the summer, but it has a long run to the tank, so hopefully it cools on its journey.

Regarding outside air temp, not much thermal mass, should have little impact.
Our skimmer line is outside summer and winter with no noticeable temp effect.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

my skimmer left running will raise the temp 3-4 degrees on a hot day, 1500 gallons , skimmer is a 15 inch body 7 feet tall quad beckett . thats with a 2.5 hp chiller running. So i would say yes its worth watching your temps. Alos in summer we evaporate alot of water so air exchanger helps with keeping the ph up in the morton building a bit.

winters we get negative temps here, i heat the inlet and run 2 becketts with outside air and 2 with inside air. ranco will turn off the 2 outside pumps if temp low threshold is reached.

 

[HuduVudu]

@T-J you might want to check into an ERV. The are designed for the very situation you find yourself in.

 

[Morpheosz]

I used to run it that way, but then had a near catastrophic failure and decided not to run it that way again.

Sure, makes sense. I have 2 layers of precautions - a float valve in my skimmer to shut it off if it fills plus I have the scrubber mounted about 5' above the sump on the wall so it would very likely be impossible to suck skimmate all the way up into it even if the skimmer didn't shut down.

 

[T-J]

Woke up to an even lower pH this morning. That's really strange since the line runs to the outside. No exhaust vents anywhere near the line.
I guess I'll keep an eye on it today to see if the pH goes up faster than the past day or two without the line.

 

[Garf]

I don’t think your pH is going below 7. Everything would be dissolving.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

What is the ph reading, its cant be 7 or less than 7 ?
how are you measuring ph?

 

[T-J]

I don’t think your pH is going below 7. Everything would be dissolving.

What is the ph reading, its cant be 7 or less than 7 ?
how are you measuring ph?

Sorry about that, I mis-typed. I meant to say 8. I have corrected the initial post.

 

[T-J]

After 24 hours it looks like it’s working. pH topped out at about 8.11 today, which was higher than yesterday. Assuming it doesn’t bottom out lower than a day ago, it’ll continue to rise.

 

[T-J]

You can see how it's slowly improving over the last several days. Each day the low end of the pH is getting higher. Before the outside air intake, it would bottom out at 7.86. Last night the low was 7.92.
Previous high was 8.06. Yesterday was 8.13. Today is still trending upward, and is higher than the same time yesterday.
I'm guessing it'll take another week before it stabilizes and gets into a good spot.

 

[cmoore806]

My pH was maxing out at 8 then I calibrated my probe it went to 8.2!

 

[T-J]

So another update on this. I realized that the 1/4” tubing I was using to run to the outside is just too thin. It was restricting the airflow too much. So, today I installed 3/8” ID 1/2” OD tubing. The difference was instant! Had to adjust the skimmer since it was pulling in so much more air.

 

[T-J]

24 hours later and you can already see how much of a difference the larger intake line has made!

 

[Gatorpa]

24 hours later and you can already see how much of a difference the larger intake line has made!

I live in Central Florida and am considering this for the same reason you did. Have you noticed any issue with temp creeping from entraining in the hotter outside air?

Also did you consider a filter of sorts to keep insects from crawling the tube?

 

[T-J]

I live in Central Florida and am considering this for the same reason you did. Have you noticed any issue with temp creeping from entraining in the hotter outside air?

Also did you consider a filter of sorts to keep insects from crawling the tube?

I didn't have either of these issues.
Having said that, I have switched over to a kalk stirrer, which has helped my pH more than the fresh-air solution.