Question - Dehumidifier causing accelerated evaporation?

[JCOLE]

Hello everyone,

I have my 150 gallon plumbed into my garage along with a fuge with Chaeto and Mangroves. Over the past couple of months with the increased heat, it has become very humid in my garage. I am concerned with Mold, etc. Current humidity is in the 70's. I installed a Haider Humidifier and set it to 40% humidity. It works really well and usually brings it down to around 40-45% in an hour. I have to drain out the reservoir daily from the humidifier running throughout the day. Since the installation of the humidifier a week ago my ATO has seems to run out a day quicker. I usually get about 2-3 days worth with a 5 gallon bucket. Now I seem to be getting the max of two days out of a 5 gallon bucket.

Does a humidifier cause the water in my sump and fuge to evaporate quicker?

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

I think by definition the answer have to be yes.

 

[shred5]

Absolutely.
I see it every summer when I turn on my dehumidifiers.

 

[saltyhog]

For sure, evaporation is directly linked to the relative humidity.

 

[JCOLE]

Absolutely.
I see it every summer when I turn on my dehumidifiers.

Ok. I thought I was going crazy and there was a leak somewhere. I use Kalk in my ATO. Will this affect anything with pH, Alk, etc with the increased usage?

 

[Saltyreef]

Ok. I thought I was going crazy and there was a leak somewhere. I use Kalk in my ATO. Will this affect anything with pH, Alk, etc with the increased usage?

Absolutely. If you want to run the humidifier and are worried about using more of the kalk top off water, just make sure your alk and cal consumption is still stable. For example make sure you arent logging an increase in parameter values over the course of a 5 day trend. You should be fine as kalk is not a very strong solution at full saturation and most usually still need to implement 2 part dosing on top of kalk.