fresh air from outdoors to raise pH

Gary Majchrzak

Gary Majchrzak

Team RC
a dwelling sealed up with people inside will drop aquarium pH due to increased CO2 levels. There was a thread a few weeks ago regarding running skimmer air lines to the outside in order to raise aquarium pH. How many folks have tried this and what were/are your results- is your aquarium running at a noticeably higher pH?
We have a houseload of people right now and my pH is running lower than normal. I just hooked up my skimmer airline to the outside and pH immediatly jumped from 7.14 to 7.16, but it might be due to the aquarium lights turning on. I don't know if the fresh air is having any effect- maybe it's too soon to tell.
 
alot of these posts pop up durring winter when house is all sealed up.i used to do have to do it as my tank was in basement.
 
Tom tried this.

I wonder how well it would work to get a compressed air bottle filled with oxygen and have it regulated directly into your skimmer venturi? Seems like overkill, but so does running pipe to the outside.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12986443#post12986443 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by acdraindrps
Tom tried this.

I wonder how well it would work to get a compressed air bottle filled with oxygen and have it regulated directly into your skimmer venturi? Seems like overkill, but so does running pipe to the outside.
Click to expand...

The same company that makes mapp, and propane for torches also make oxygen(not pure but good for our purposes). You could set up some kind of a system that would give a constant stream of O2 into the skimmer via tubing. Just be careful not to use it anywhere near a flame. If you ran such a system for a few minutes and used a pH probe at the outlet of the skimmer to measure effect you should see a dramatic impact with in a minute or sooner (skimmer size dependant).

I have pH issues and have been using out door air for a couple of months with great results. I am worried about the winter time though.
 
you keep 2 windows open and the A/C running?



<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12985497#post12985497 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by oceanparadise1
My tank is infront of two windoes that are always open, and my ph never drops below 8
Click to expand...
 
thanx for the link.
my probe has been calibrated very recently and it does register the high pH of kalkwasser properly. Maybe I need to give the fresh air more time to raise pH of the entire system.
 
Hi Gary,
I have the luxury of having my sump in the basement,so it was easy to run an airline to the basment window and rig a piece of stiff insulation with a piece of screen to cover the opening in the galss block window and provide a screened air input for the tubing. In a DIY mood and with 20 minutes to spare, I tried it. Eventhough I wasn't sure I had a CO2 problem in the house.

My skimmer did not bubble well defeating the whole purpose by reducing the skimmer's oxygenation, probably because of the 10 foot length of small tubing.I could fix this by running a one inch or so pipe and reducing it down at th skimmer but I never did and just started dosing kalk instead with much better results.

If I were going to try this again, I would do the outside aeration test first to discern wether or not I have aCO2 problem in the house. As you probably know, you aerate some tank water and test the ph inside,then take some tank water outside , aerate it and test the ph. If there is a significantly higher ph outside then it might be wothwhile to hook the skimmer to an outside line.

Those numbers 7.14 don't seem at all right and are probalby related to a testing issue.
 
FWIW, those probes and the monitor itself can be very sensitive to any electrical interference at the outlet or in the water. They even react when the cord is in close proximity to other wires particularly ballst and wave makers.
 
Every time I close up the house and run the air-conditioner the ph drops. It's predictable. It was worse while running a calcium reactor. I haven't seen deleterious effects though. I pump in extra kalk and the levels are bumped slightly but by then the heat wave ends and the window get opened and ph rises. Alls good.

I guess a real simple solution is to crack a few windows, but of course that lets in some uncomfortable humidity.
 
Last night we opened the windows and the ph went from 7.98 to 8.19 with out any other changes.
 
Would anyone know if extending the tube hinder the ability to suction air the way it would at normal length?

It would be good for me to run outside also due to the noise level my suction tube makes from my skimmer.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12988565#post12988565 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kent E
Every time I close up the house and run the air-conditioner the ph drops. It's predictable. It was worse while running a calcium reactor. I haven't seen deleterious effects though. I pump in extra kalk and the levels are bumped slightly but by then the heat wave ends and the window get opened and ph rises. Alls good.

I guess a real simple solution is to crack a few windows, but of course that lets in some uncomfortable humidity.
Click to expand...

EMF is a *itch huh Tom? ;)

Also for those of you considering dosing O2 straight to your tank via the skimmer remember that 100% O2 is probably as corrosive as a 50mg/hr Ozone addition. So you will over time notice deterioration of the tubing and perhaps the acrylic in your skimmer if you do this... And as mentioned, Pure (or near enough pure) O2 is not something to be trifled with. An Oxygen fire is the worst thing ever, don't want that much fuel in your house going up real quick due to careless handling of it.

Personally, I agree with Tom that adding O2 directly to the tank is unfortunately not a good solution for driving out CO2. Ultimately calcium hydroxide scrubbing (kalkwasser) addition is the easiest measure by far of defeating ambient CO2. Using Outside air can work, but as Tom found, you can't just use long airline tubing as the pressure drop will be too much, gotta get a big tube to the tank then reduce it down just before introduction to the skimmer.
 
long airline tubing doesn't have a noticeable effect on air intake in my case. I'm using 25ft. of 3/8" ID rigid flex tubing on my Beckett skimmer and it hasn't (noticeably) effected skimmer performance. The true test would be to hook up something like an airflow meter to measure airflow but I don't have one of those things. The next step is to design some type of aircleaner/filter for the air intake. Right now the only thing filtering my outside air is some nylon window screen.
 
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