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CO2 Scrubber - PH GOES UP


neuwave

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OK, old thread, but I'm going to light it up again....because it deserves it.

My circumstances...living in Texas, air con running 24/7 in a closed house, 2 adults, 2 children, 7 dogs (yes, I know, SEVEN dogs, but not my doing) = a high...very high CO2 concentration in the home.

Now, I'm in total agreement when people say you shouldn't chase PH, but one thing a controller does is let you see up to the minute trends that can affect your tank...and I dare anybody to say that when you wake up in the morning and you see a low ph of 7.58 - 7.60 and a daily average of about 7.7 over the course of weeks, that they wouldn't sit up and try to correct it. I can tell you, corals will survive under those conditions, but they won't grow.

Enter the CO2 scrubber. Mine is a TLF Phosban 150 reactor filled with soda lime, driving a Tunze Nano Doc 9002. The result a morning low ph of 7.8...now that is better. Corals more open than ever before, better skimmer operation (the bubbles seem to hold together longer) and a happier me.

I'm pretty sure the ph will rise from that new level a bit more, as the tank takes a different maturation path at the higher ph and settles at its new equilibrium.

 

I cant believe CO2 scrubbers aren't more popular. I'm sure many people who try to create a high and stable ph by adding buffers (be it Kalk etc), are probably missing the obvious.

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Very high cost keeps most people away.

 

Soda Lime is not that expensive esp. if you buy it in bulk from say Airgas a nationwide company

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jedimasterben

Soda Lime is not that expensive esp. if you buy it in bulk from say Airgas a nationwide company

Those that have high CO2 typically go through a pound or more of sodalime per day. Airgas sells it in ~50lbs buckets, cost was about $120 with tax last I checked (about a year ago). I personally used about a pound and a half per day. That is ~$3.60 per day, around $1300 per year.

 

My house is not even that bad when it comes to CO2 levels. It's high, but not ridiculously so.

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Those that have high CO2 typically go through a pound or more of sodalime per day. Airgas sells it in ~50lbs buckets, cost was about $120 with tax last I checked (about a year ago). I personally used about a pound and a half per day. That is ~$3.60 per day, around $1300 per year.

 

My house is not even that bad when it comes to CO2 levels. It's high, but not ridiculously so.

 

If one has to use that much, then yes it gets expensive

 

AT

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OK, old thread, but I'm going to light it up again....because it deserves it.

My circumstances...living in Texas, air con running 24/7 in a closed house, 2 adults, 2 children, 7 dogs (yes, I know, SEVEN dogs, but not my doing) = a high...very high CO2 concentration in the home.

Now, I'm in total agreement when people say you shouldn't chase PH, but one thing a controller does is let you see up to the minute trends that can affect your tank...and I dare anybody to say that when you wake up in the morning and you see a low ph of 7.58 - 7.60 and a daily average of about 7.7 over the course of weeks, that they wouldn't sit up and try to correct it. I can tell you, corals will survive under those conditions, but they won't grow.

Enter the CO2 scrubber. Mine is a TLF Phosban 150 reactor filled with soda lime, driving a Tunze Nano Doc 9002. The result a morning low ph of 7.8...now that is better. Corals more open than ever before, better skimmer operation (the bubbles seem to hold together longer) and a happier me.

I'm pretty sure the ph will rise from that new level a bit more, as the tank takes a different maturation path at the higher ph and settles at its new equilibrium.

 

I cant believe CO2 scrubbers aren't more popular. I'm sure many people who try to create a high and stable ph by adding buffers (be it Kalk etc), are probably missing the obvious.

I'm going on 4 years using it with good success. Pretty much a plug and play. Ph ranges around 8.2 in the morning and 8.3 during the day.

 

 

Very high cost keeps most people away.

 

Those that have high CO2 typically go through a pound or more of sodalime per day. Airgas sells it in ~50lbs buckets, cost was about $120 with tax last I checked (about a year ago). I personally used about a pound and a half per day. That is ~$3.60 per day, around $1300 per year.

 

My house is not even that bad when it comes to CO2 levels. It's high, but not ridiculously so.

 

Well I think it is about time I jumped in on this conversation. I understand as you have posted that it expensive to run a CO2 scrubber because of the soda lime. So let's see if we can trouble shoot your soda lime problems. From what I remember you used CDX as a replacement for the Airgas soda lime because they said it was $116 and now $120 per bucket. The sales man or woman probably didn't want to put the effort into getting you one bucket. They prefer to sell pallets of the stuff and make a bigger sale. One of the Airgas places near my old apartment played dumb and said "I don't know how to order that stuff" & "we don't sell it at this location in small quantities" & "I can't find it in our system". Coming from two different employees. After a search on Google I found an Airgas with a better reputation. Just happened to be the manager working that day and he had printed me a receipt in less than 10 minutes. Ordered it for about $82 which included a small charge to deliver to my front door. You must have spoken with a lazy employee. Even other threads from other hobbyist around the internet have got a price around $80 give or take from Airgas. I think after being discouraged you must not have looked many other places for the soda lime.

Here are a couple quick internet searches I did during my lunch today:

 

$79.99 + Free shipping for 32lbs (@ $2.50 a pound)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131548762602?hash=item1ea0ead1ea&item=131548762602

 

$7.80 for 3lbs +$10 shipping (30lbs @ $2.93 a pound)

http://www.shopmedvet.com/product/soda-lime-3-lb-bag/jorgensen-products-anesthesia-products

 

$84.50 for 37lb 5 gallon bucket + $22 shipping (@ $2.87 a pound)

http://www.diverssupplyinc.net/browse.cfm/4,1386.html

 

 

All are under the $3.14 a pound you initially estimated.

 

Soda lime can be found in various places such as vet medical websites, hospitals sites and scuba diving stores (which would eliminate your need for shipping). We both live in Florida and scuba shops are plenty.

 

Next let's trouble shoot the issue with the soda lime exhausting way too fast. I recall you having a RO XP2000 skimmer, using CDX media, and a TLF canister to hold the media. For some reason TLF says use this media for X gallon tank. WHY? Why do they say that? Makes no sense. Soda lime is removing CO2 from the passing air and not out of the aquarium water. The most important thing you have to look at is the air intake of your skimmer. You had that air sucking titan of a skimmer on your tank with bubble blaster pulling over 700 l/hr of air through just one outlet in the reactor. No wonder your media exhausted so quickly. If you split the media into two separate reactors (in parallel, not series) the air flow over the media would extend the life of your media. Saving you money.

 

Unfortunately TLF doesn't explain the air flow rates needed per pound of CO2 absorbent. No one does TLF, BRS or any of the kits you buy online. I think they just threw the CO2 scrubber kits together in hopes to make a new product.

 

It's only when options like kalkwasser, buffers, algae scrubber, reverse light refugium, running an air line outside are not helping or opening a window is unbearable.

for Example:

My bad yard at the moment has a good amount of humidity. lol

774AAC20-C261-42E6-8BE3-B596872244E6_zps

 

Bro I know you've seen this thread before, my postings about the scrubber on other threads when all other options have failed. You never once asked for assistance. I would have been happy to help. I like the odd ball questions, its fun.

 

I probably haven't changed your mind at all but if you ever try doing this again, I'm happy to help.

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jedimasterben

I'm going on 4 years using it with good success. Pretty much a plug and play. Ph ranges around 8.2 in the morning and 8.3 during the day.

 

 

 

 

Well I think it is about time I jumped in on this conversation. I understand as you have posted that it expensive to run a CO2 scrubber because of the soda lime. So let's see if we can trouble shoot your soda lime problems. From what I remember you used CDX as a replacement for the Airgas soda lime because they said it was $116 and now $120 per bucket. The sales man or woman probably didn't want to put the effort into getting you one bucket. They prefer to sell pallets of the stuff and make a bigger sale. One of the Airgas places near my old apartment played dumb and said "I don't know how to order that stuff" & "we don't sell it at this location in small quantities" & "I can't find it in our system". Coming from two different employees. After a search on Google I found an Airgas with a better reputation. Just happened to be the manager working that day and he had printed me a receipt in less than 10 minutes. Ordered it for about $82 which included a small charge to deliver to my front door. You must have spoken with a lazy employee. Even other threads from other hobbyist around the internet have got a price around $80 give or take from Airgas. I think after being discouraged you must not have looked many other places for the soda lime.

Here are a couple quick internet searches I did during my lunch today:

 

$79.99 + Free shipping for 32lbs (@ $2.50 a pound)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131548762602?hash=item1ea0ead1ea&item=131548762602

 

$7.80 for 3lbs +$10 shipping (30lbs @ $2.93 a pound)

http://www.shopmedvet.com/product/soda-lime-3-lb-bag/jorgensen-products-anesthesia-products

 

$84.50 for 37lb 5 gallon bucket + $22 shipping (@ $2.87 a pound)

http://www.diverssupplyinc.net/browse.cfm/4,1386.html

 

 

All are under the $3.14 a pound you initially estimated.

 

Soda lime can be found in various places such as vet medical websites, hospitals sites and scuba diving stores (which would eliminate your need for shipping). We both live in Florida and scuba shops are plenty.

 

Next let's trouble shoot the issue with the soda lime exhausting way too fast. I recall you having a RO XP2000 skimmer, using CDX media, and a TLF canister to hold the media. For some reason TLF says use this media for X gallon tank. WHY? Why do they say that? Makes no sense. Soda lime is removing CO2 from the passing air and not out of the aquarium water. The most important thing you have to look at is the air intake of your skimmer. You had that air sucking titan of a skimmer on your tank with bubble blaster pulling over 700 l/hr of air through just one outlet in the reactor. No wonder your media exhausted so quickly. If you split the media into two separate reactors (in parallel, not series) the air flow over the media would extend the life of your media. Saving you money.

 

Unfortunately TLF doesn't explain the air flow rates needed per pound of CO2 absorbent. No one does TLF, BRS or any of the kits you buy online. I think they just threw the CO2 scrubber kits together in hopes to make a new product.

 

It's only when options like kalkwasser, buffers, algae scrubber, reverse light refugium, running an air line outside are not helping or opening a window is unbearable.

for Example:

My bad yard at the moment has a good amount of humidity. lol

774AAC20-C261-42E6-8BE3-B596872244E6_zps

 

Bro I know you've seen this thread before, my postings about the scrubber on other threads when all other options have failed. You never once asked for assistance. I would have been happy to help. I like the odd ball questions, its fun.

 

I probably haven't changed your mind at all but if you ever try doing this again, I'm happy to help.

I did originally use the TLF garbage because the volumes sold were misleading. I didn't pursue the matter any with Airgas because right around that time I realized that in the battle with dinoflagellates there is no winning and raising pH doesn't work. Wayfair actually used to sell a 5g bucket of sodalime for like 80 shipped, but then it went up to around $120 shipped, and now it looks like they don't even sell it anymore. I think that my price from airgas was probably because I live in a tiny town without any other options :)

 

Your point about the insane skimmer pump is very valid, the BB have extremely high air intake, though i did have it valved down quite a bit so it would skim better. I didn't use the media for very long or I more than likely would have come asking for help, you're the CO2 scrubber man :)

 

I did have an airline run through the floor of my house to pull in air, but I just replaced the flooring in this room and it is too new to be drilling a nice hole into it just yet lol, but I'm in the same boat as you as far as outside conditions. I painted my new tank stand a couple of weekends ago with a high-VOC paint and had to open up all the windows in the house. It was unbearably hot and humid. Blech. And today I saw four pair of lovebugs, to that means they're about to swarm. Double blech!

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I did originally use the TLF garbage because the volumes sold were misleading. I didn't pursue the matter any with Airgas because right around that time I realized that in the battle with dinoflagellates there is no winning and raising pH doesn't work. Wayfair actually used to sell a 5g bucket of sodalime for like 80 shipped, but then it went up to around $120 shipped, and now it looks like they don't even sell it anymore. I think that my price from airgas was probably because I live in a tiny town without any other options :)

 

Your point about the insane skimmer pump is very valid, the BB have extremely high air intake, though i did have it valved down quite a bit so it would skim better. I didn't use the media for very long or I more than likely would have come asking for help, you're the CO2 scrubber man :)

 

I did have an airline run through the floor of my house to pull in air, but I just replaced the flooring in this room and it is too new to be drilling a nice hole into it just yet lol, but I'm in the same boat as you as far as outside conditions. I painted my new tank stand a couple of weekends ago with a high-VOC paint and had to open up all the windows in the house. It was unbearably hot and humid. Blech. And today I saw four pair of lovebugs, to that means they're about to swarm. Double blech!

 

No worries bro, I got you. I'm always happy to help. I'm a few months shy of my 2 decades of reefing and I still cant stop. I am always looking for new and inventive things we can do to our reefs. The biology, equipment, and the art of the reef will always have my attention. Even now I'm trying something out of the box and redid my scape and with large rasping metal file, a dremel and chisel to carve the rock into shape. lol

Also today is the first day of the fall semester. I'm taking engineering fluid systems and the professor gave us a run down of the chapters. His first example on the board was his aquarium and sump! I nearly jumped out of my chair. We are going learn the calculations for flow rate vs pipe diameter to best plumb a system. Also test water pumps for their ability to push the water at certain heights. I volunteered various AC and DC pumps I have at home we can test for best efficiency. I can definitely say I geeked out on aquarium plumbing. :)

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jedimasterben

No worries bro, I got you. I'm always happy to help. I'm a few months shy of my 2 decades of reefing and I still cant stop. I am always looking for new and inventive things we can do to our reefs. The biology, equipment, and the art of the reef will always have my attention. Even now I'm trying something out of the box and redid my scape and with large rasping metal file, a dremel and chisel to carve the rock into shape. lol

Also today is the first day of the fall semester. I'm taking engineering fluid systems and the professor gave us a run down of the chapters. His first example on the board was his aquarium and sump! I nearly jumped out of my chair. We are going learn the calculations for flow rate vs pipe diameter to best plumb a system. Also test water pumps for their ability to push the water at certain heights. I volunteered various AC and DC pumps I have at home we can test for best efficiency. I can definitely say I geeked out on aquarium plumbing. :)

Dude, that's pretty awesome! You'll probably like that class, I can see it now :)

 

And do you not have a tank thread anywhere?

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jedimasterben

Cheap CO2 scrubber for busy households - grow some damn plants inside. Done.

Doesn't work that way. The sheer volume of plant mass required to uptake large enough amounts of CO2 to make a difference leads to other problems, such as giving them enough light to do so (which uses power and makes heat, which is another significant problem), nutrients, water, etc to ensure that they are continuing to grow at a rapid rate. NASA's research into the subject concluded that the average house would need some 680 plants to reduce the amount of CO2.

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jedimasterben

680 plants to reduce CO2 to what level? To completely negate the CO2? That's not necessary.

From the way I understood it, it is to eliminate the excess CO2 emitted by the average members of that average house, so essentially keeping it at 'normal' levels.

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From the way I understood it, it is to eliminate the excess CO2 emitted by the average members of that average house, so essentially keeping it at 'normal' levels.

Are you talking about the clean air study from the 80s or a more recent one? The one from the 80s suggested something like 1 plant per 100 square feet was enough.

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jedimasterben

Are you talking about the clean air study from the 80s or a more recent one? The one from the 80s suggested something like 1 plant per 100 square feet was enough.

The one done by NASA in 1991.

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The one done by NASA in 1991.

I can only find a report from 1989 - http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930073077.pdf

 

This article from NASA says that all their findings suggest that houseplants do help. https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2007/ps_3.html

 

I think Wolverton gets a bit over the top later on suggesting that houseplants are cures for all kinds of air pollution - even going so far as to pump toxic compounds into his own house at one point - but even current research continues to back up that houseplants of certain varieties are really quite helpful for a variety of things.

 

Just a few I found:

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjshs1/78/4/78_4_456/_article

http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/227

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13580-011-0169-6

 

Putting a plant or two in the room where your tank is in a window would probably help quite a bit. My biggest concern with the concept of the NEED for a CO2 scrubber is the biological implications. If you have enough CO2 in your house to cause problems with your tanks, you probably have enough to cause sick building syndrome, which affects people's health. I'm by no means an expert in any sense of the word in this, but it seems really strange to need a CO2 scrubber for your tank if there is nothing else happening in your house CO2-related.

 

Edit: It's totally possible - I don't know the chemistry behind CO2 and tank water interaction, surface area, etc.

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Dude, that's pretty awesome! You'll probably like that class, I can see it now :)

 

And do you not have a tank thread anywhere?

 

I think I'm the only one in my class that is slightly excited to figure out fluid calculations on an aquarium. lol I wonder how many pumps my professor will let me bring in to test. I have maxi jet 1200, jebao 6000, and a mag 9.5 in the closet.

I don't have a tank thread at the moment. My old tank thread has two pictures of upgrades I was doing for my 60xl Solana. The Solana has been setup for a year but something kept bugging me about the scape. So I took out the old scape and the new carved scape is cycling in container of display tank water at the moment. I have a orange passion frag that has developed better colors when I increased the light and the nutrients. Once it and the other corals grow out a bit I'll make a new thread.

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