Soda Lime for CO2 Scrubbing

Johnseye

Johnseye

Reef Addict
I'm considering inserting a CO2 scrubber in line with my skimmer. My PH has stayed at about 8 as an average in my new tank, which is in the basement. Sump/fishroom is in a room adjacent to a room housing the furnace/hot water heaters. Skimmer is a LifeReef and to be honest if this can quiet the venturi this will be a double win.

So to the point. BRS sells medical grade color changing soda lime for $50 per 9 lbs. Amazon sells Intersorb at $68 per 20 lbs.(including shipping). Same thing, except no percentage of zeolite. Shopmedvet sells 3 lb bags for $7.80 (21 lbs for $64.60 including shipping). Same thing no zeolite. Question is, are these products really all the same, other than the zeolite in the BRS version?

There are some other threads about this as well, but they're dated. If anyone has a preferred soda lime vendor they'd like to share, please do.

My PH. You can see where I refilled the ATO water in my reservoir without adding kalk for a couple days as my PH lowered. Then added kalk at 2 tsp per gallon visible after Aug 10th as the PH increased to its highest point.

PH.jpg
 
With your ph range I wouldn't even worry about it. PH, except if very high or very low, has no meaningful effect on the tank or its inhabitants. Many people don't even moitor or test for it.
 
hkgar said:
With your ph range I wouldn't even worry about it. PH, except if very high or very low, has no meaningful effect on the tank or its inhabitants. Many people don't even moitor or test for it.
Click to expand...

I was going to say the same. With an average of 8.0, that's pretty normal. I don't think bumping it to an average of 8.1 or 8.2 is going to do anything.
I tried pulling fresh air into my lifereef and it barely moved. I mayyyybe got .1 out of it. And 8.0 was usually my high for the day, down to 7.75 or so at night.
 
Johnseye said:
Do you fill the entire reactor with it? I filled mine half way about 3 days ago and am not seeing a change yet.
Click to expand...

Yes, I fill the entire reactor. One bag fills my reactor. Mine starts to change color within a couple of days. After about 4 weeks its almost all purple and time for a change.

I have to agree with the other posts. You pH looks pretty stable. For me I struggle to keep pH in the 7.8 to 8.0 range without the scrubber. My town home is pretty tight, so not much fresh air getting in this time of year.
 
squin said:
I use this in a NextReef reactor plumbed into the air intake for my skimmer.



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



Ordered this up and going to give it whirl. House stays pretty tight and hoping this helps. I have phosban 150 reactor so don't think I'll be able to fit an entire bag. Setting up Saturday so I'll be around to monitor. Threads like this are really helpful, thanks all.


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It's been working for me. My ph is now pretty steady around 8.2 to 8.3 during the day. I do burn through the soda lime faster than I thought. Not sure how accurate the color change is but it turns purple fast.
 
pH itself is not such a serious issue, but excess CO2 concentration is. A low pH can be an indication of high CO2 level in water, and it can be serious in Winter with tightly closed windows and several people in a room.
 
Johnseye said:
It's been working for me. My ph is now pretty steady around 8.2 to 8.3 during the day. I do burn through the soda lime faster than I thought. Not sure how accurate the color change is but it turns purple fast.
Click to expand...
Your pH is pretty high for needing a CO2 scrubber. You could easily afford to reduce the airflow through the scrubber. Just need a T and a ball valve so your skimmer still gets all the air it needs.
 
Ok. So I couldn't wait for the weekend and I see what you guys are saying about how fast it turns purple. It's been two hours!


889847ca346d24fb0bd4c019aaed6d11.jpg



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That is going to get very expensive very quickly if that is just two hours worth. Any way you can just run an airline from outside the house to the skimmer intake? Doing that bumped my pH up by .2 - .3 over the course of a couple of weeks
 
waterjockey said:
That is going to get very expensive very quickly if that is just two hours worth. Any way you can just run an airline from outside the house to the skimmer intake? Doing that bumped my pH up by .2 - .3 over the course of a couple of weeks
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Yes, I can, but just don't want to. Hate the idea of drilling a hole through the side of my house to achieve this, but you're right. I'm just blown away at how fast it's exhausting. The whole thing will be purple by morning at this rate.


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Jonmf said:
Yes, I can, but just don't want to. Hate the idea of drilling a hole through the side of my house to achieve this, but you're right. I'm just blown away at how fast it's exhausting. The whole thing will be purple by morning at this rate.


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Click to expand...
I'd be interested how much more its changed. My experience has been a very quick initial color change and then slows down.

Otherwise you can slowdown the airflow like I mentioned above with a T and a ball valve.
 
How I have mine setup:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=24679460

jason2459 said:
I had a question on my ozone setup and use. I've posted this before so most of this will be a copy paste.


You certainly don't need much ozone to produce results. I've also found very small amounts to help skimmer production while higher amounts hinder a good dense foam production. Some people will only run ozone for a couple hours right after lights on with great results.

I have used a 50mg/l redsea aquazone for years and have it down to running 25% for around 200 gallon system volume. That is a very small amount and poses little risk to fish even if GAC wasn't used. I do have a bag of GAC (ROX 0.8) sitting in front of my skimmer's output as a precaution. I do feel it acts like a flocculant at that small amount along with being an oxidizing agent. As others have said it's only one small part to maintaining my system.

More importantly though is that ozone isn't released into the atmosphere for you or anyone else in the house to breath in. (another reason I like very small amounts.) If using a skimmer as a reactor put bags of carbon over the collection cup if there's holes. I used to tape the holes up with duct tape except one of them and shoved my skimmer's airline in it to draw in any excess ozone air back into the skimmer. Lifereef skimmer do this already. My current skimmer is sealed on top with no holes so I don't have to worry about that part (MTC MVX).

Waterkeeper pointed me to these articles a few moons ago and should be read by anyone looking to use ozone.

Ozone and the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley Parts 1, 2, and 3
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-03/rhf/index.php

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-04/rhf/index.php

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-05/rhf/index.php



Posted this just recently but shows how I used to duct tape the holes on top except one to suck back into the skimmer any unused ozone.
ed5f94dfc5ccf75968b0d059455452dc.jpg


The MTC MVX is sealed with a rubber gasket and screwed down. No holes on top. :)

Now for how I have it all setup airline wise.

I use a T to split off and control freshair flow and airflow from the ozone generator. And you'll see I also use a CO2 scrubber pre ozone generator.

The sodalime CO2 scrubber actually does two things for me. It acts to reduce CO2 going into the skimmer which helps elevate my tanks pH slightly but it also drys the air some as well which makes the ozone generator more efficient.

I T off the air flow going through both the CO2 scrubber and ozone generator as the generator doesn't need that much flow and would actually restrict airflow if I didn't T off and restricting the air flow through the scrubber increases its life as the sodalime would be exhausted much faster if pulling 100% of the air draw through it and I found it doesn't help increase pH that much more doing so.

So
Air in > scrubber > generator > T > skimmer
Air in > T > skimmer.

If that wasn't confusing here's a picture of the airlines which may or may not help clear that up. And you'll love my way of connecting some of these hoses...shoving one into another. Im not concerned with airtight as the air flow through the generator is less then the total airflow.

Air in
defe4631ca3569dc93ebf40d55cfe1e0.jpg


Sceubber to generator
1ee224cee3b36cca629fe7135a777bcb.jpg


b4ee97103dbf017d76679e253b7be876.jpg


Generator to T
0cb4ab14fb586f5d95272f697bfa5c5f.jpg



Air in to T and T to skimmer
522536e0574e86459df984775ce360f0.jpg



And my ozone generator is controlled by my apex. Monitoring orp should be done when using ozone.

Fallback OFF
If DT_ORP < 400 Then ON
If DT_ORP > 425 Then OFF
If Outlet skimmer_7_5 = OFF Then OFF
Click to expand...
 
jason2459 said:
I'd be interested how much more its changed. My experience has been a very quick initial color change and then slows down.

Otherwise you can slowdown the airflow like I mentioned above with a T and a ball valve.
Click to expand...



It was all purple down to about 2" from the bottom. As of an hour ago. The color change in the media seems consistent.


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