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Co2 scrubber recirculating air

ofzakaria

ofzakaria

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I did not want to have this discussion on @Rostato thread so am creating this new one.
I could not help it but keep thinking about the co2 scrubber recirculating method out there, some are using it including rostato.
I am wondering how effective such method is, not in terms of co2 scrubbing rather if its impacting something else.

The method is hooking the inlet of the co2 scrubber to the skimmer collection cup, then hook the outlet of the co2 scrubber reactor to the air intake of the skimmer.. this way the air from the skimmer collection cup go through the co2 media then back to skimmer air inlet to the water..

Here is what am worried about:

1- the air inside skimmer cup is far from fresh air and shoild be filled with methane from all the decomposed organics....Skimmers are one of the major junctions that o2 is infused with our water, when using this method, aren't we forcing the skimmer to infuse water that is full with methane and other gases from the decomposed material in the skimmer cup instead of fresh air? Do we think this will have negative impact on the system?

2- when we restrict air from the skimmer cup, aren't we playing with air pressure inside the skimmer body and cup that might impact the bubble action inside the skimmer body? This depend on the implementation of the method but what I saw online is people closing all the holes on skimmer cup cover and leave one open that is forced to the co2 reactor.

3- look like with such method the co2 scrubber reactor get humid. I have read that the media should not make it to the water and if water touched the media it will melt it and if this liquid make it to the water it will spike ph and cause problems. Now, looking at how humid the reactor is, I cannot help it but think some of this moisture will make it to the media, why not? Move moisture inside the reactor it will have clear access to media. Shoild we worry that this humid almost water filled air make it to the media then makes it's way to the water thru the skimmer?

I am almost tempted to replicate the setup and measure ORP of the water and the skimmer performance:))

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Honestly I can’t speak to the science of it but without running it through my skimmer air it lasted 5-6 days and didn’t seem like a viable option then once it pulled in the damp air refills are every 3-4 weeks(house stays closed up and heater on) so guessing in the summer once widows are open it will be much longer. The PH rise was also considerably better with the damp air.

Here’s my shot at the #s

1- Haven’t noticed anything negative though those points are worth noting I think. Only running 5 months now.

2-A scrubber certainly restricts air flow into the skimmer and also effects the energy draw(lowers mine on Apex) Luckily I have the infamous vertex omega skimmer which pulls in way more air than it would ever need and since adding the reactor is skims better than ever. There’s also a point I heard where the pure O2 air going into the skimmer helps it break down organics better and skim more effectively.

3-I haven’t noticed any clumping but have seen people run drip cup of sorts before the reactor that I’ve been considering as a project.
 
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All of your concerns are warranted.

It is absolutely a huge risk to run your co2 scrubber this way.

If your skimmer goes nuts and your scrubber starts to suck skimmer water, your whole tank will most certainly crash.

But the media will not last very long if it’s run dry. It’s a trade off I’m will to deal with. Ive seen significantly more growth after implementing this method. But I do have a fairly low ORP (225-325). I would be curious to see what happens to ORP if I took the scrubber offline.

This post made me think of a better way to implement the scrubber without sucking skimmer air, but also still sucking moist air. The light bulb went off.

Why not run the intake of your scrubber from the top of your ATO container. As long as it can’t actually suck water, it should have access to humid air from your container. Probably not going to be as “good” as skimmer, but safer nonetheless.

Thoughts?
 
The_Lazy_Reefer said:
Honestly I can’t speak to the science of it but without running it through my skimmer air it lasted 5-6 days and didn’t seem like a viable option then once it pulled in the damp air refills are every 3-4 weeks(house stays closed up and heater on) so guessing in the summer once widows are open it will be much longer. The PH rise was also considerably better with the damp air.
Click to expand...
Again am wondering about other than the impact on the media. Media life dose vary, In my system I get a min of 2 months.
Actually media life discussion by itself is more bizarre for me that's why I did not open that can yet.
If we say media life depend on the ammount of co2 in the air, how can we think the air from skimmer cup has leas co2 than fresh air?
Skimmer ooping action actually is the best co2 scrubbing on the air exchange joints in the system. Co2 is more volatile than o2 and it will wxite the water as foam bubbles pop in the skimmer.
That is why when we tall about media life I personally think we are melting the media a bit through all this moisture so it might look to us that media life is longer.
If you take an exaughted co2 scrubber media, add some water to it then add the water passing the media to a cup of water the ph in will spike..and thatis not because co2 is removed that is because you buffered the water through the media..

Btw I made this thread to discuss not to say one way or another is wrong..

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Rostato said:
All of your concerns are warranted.

It is absolutely a huge risk to run your co2 scrubber this way.

If your skimmer goes nuts and your scrubber starts to suck skimmer water, your whole tank will most certainly crash.

But the media will not last very long if it’s run dry. It’s a trade off I’m will to deal with. Ive seen significantly more growth after implementing this method. But I do have a fairly low ORP (225-325). I would be curious to see what happens to ORP if I took the scrubber offline.

This post made me think of a better way to implement the scrubber without sucking skimmer air, but also still sucking moist air. The light bulb went off.

Why not run the intake of your scrubber from the top of your ATO container. As long as it can’t actually suck water, it should have access to humid air from your container. Probably not going to be as “good” as skimmer, but safer nonetheless.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Read my comment about the media life. I wonder if there are misconceptions and what we attribute ad media life getting better is something else because the only way ppl say media last longer is by looking at their ph. We are not really measuring the saturation of co2 in the media to say for sure media life is getting longer...

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Rostato said:
All of your concerns are warranted.

It is absolutely a huge risk to run your co2 scrubber this way.

If your skimmer goes nuts and your scrubber starts to suck skimmer water, your whole tank will most certainly crash.

But the media will not last very long if it’s run dry. It’s a trade off I’m will to deal with. Ive seen significantly more growth after implementing this method. But I do have a fairly low ORP (225-325). I would be curious to see what happens to ORP if I took the scrubber offline.

This post made me think of a better way to implement the scrubber without sucking skimmer air, but also still sucking moist air. The light bulb went off.

Why not run the intake of your scrubber from the top of your ATO container. As long as it can’t actually suck water, it should have access to humid air from your container. Probably not going to be as “good” as skimmer, but safer nonetheless.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Your method of the ATO is kind of what I described on your thread yeatrtday where you can put a water cup half full on the intake line of the scrubber.
I will make a prediction here, it will not be as good for ph as the recirculating option because I suspect reason for such high ph is not because scrubber is pulling more co2 as I said earlier..

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Rostato said:
All of your concerns are warranted.

It is absolutely a huge risk to run your co2 scrubber this way.

If your skimmer goes nuts and your scrubber starts to suck skimmer water, your whole tank will most certainly crash.

But the media will not last very long if it’s run dry. It’s a trade off I’m will to deal with. Ive seen significantly more growth after implementing this method. But I do have a fairly low ORP (225-325). I would be curious to see what happens to ORP if I took the scrubber offline.

This post made me think of a better way to implement the scrubber without sucking skimmer air, but also still sucking moist air. The light bulb went off.

Why not run the intake of your scrubber from the top of your ATO container. As long as it can’t actually suck water, it should have access to humid air from your container. Probably not going to be as “good” as skimmer, but safer nonetheless.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Just use an O2 Bubble humidifier or build your own using a mason jar.

Amazon.com: Oxygen Humidifier Bubbler Bottle - Humidity for Oxygen Therapy: Health & Personal Care

Buy Oxygen Humidifier Bubbler Bottle - Humidity for Oxygen Therapy on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders
www.amazon.com

ofzakaria said:
Hmm. Why do you think this is?

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Click to expand...

ORP increases as dissolved oxygen increases in the water.
 
@The_Lazy_Reefer my comments inline..

1- Haven’t noticed anything negative though those points are worth noting I think. Only running 5 months now.

Ofzakaria: it noticing something is not enough data..cause something can mean many things and very few things

2-A scrubber certainly restricts air flow into the skimmer and also effects the energy draw(lowers mine on Apex) Luckily I have the infamous vertex omega skimmer which pulls in way more air than it would ever need and since adding the reactor is skims better than ever. There’s also a point I heard where the pure O2 air going into the skimmer helps it break down organics better and skim more effectively.

Ofzakaria: good solution.but isnot pulling way more air mean not optimized for your system or oversized? How about the answer when using this on an optimized skimmer?

3-I haven’t noticed any clumping but have seen people run drip cup of sorts before the reactor that I’ve been considering as a project.

Ofzakaria: yes you and rostato mentioned that, I hate to be stickler but clumping is not the only measure of moisture;)



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RandyC said:
Just use an O2 Bubble humidifier or build your own using a mason jar.

Amazon.com: Oxygen Humidifier Bubbler Bottle - Humidity for Oxygen Therapy: Health & Personal Care

Buy Oxygen Humidifier Bubbler Bottle - Humidity for Oxygen Therapy on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders
www.amazon.com



ORP increases as dissolved oxygen increases in the water.
Click to expand...
Yup agree on your 1st point, I think its safer,
For 2nd point i feel its counter intuitive...the method restrict fresh air and push none fresh air back to system. How can it add more o2 than pushing fresh air to system?

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Rostato said:
Less co2 mixed in with it...
Click to expand...
I do not think so, co2 is an element and oxygen is another element. While both can mix but I do not think we are dealing with such..
If you say less co2 mixed in the air, that takes us back to the question how can we expect there is less co2 in skimmer cup air than fresh air..

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The logic arguing for this setup I’ve seen is:

1) The whole point of a CO2 scrubber is to lower the CO2 in the tank water below that which you would otherwise have with the tank equilibrating to the CO2 in your room air.
2) Your skimmer, with the very high and dynamic air bubble production, is a large contributor to total gas (CO2) exchange between room air and water, so a good target.
3) If the scrubber is working to lower CO2 level in your water, that means the CO2 level in the air inside your skimmer cup will have a lower CO2 level than room air.
4) Less media will be used to extract CO2 from this low CO2 level than it would if you started with room air (less media consumption for same target low CO2 level). Without this, the skimmer cup air with low CO2 would just mix with room air eventually.
5) The humid air issue makes sense, and may be part of it, but not what I’ve seen cited as the main reason for this specific approach as opposed to just have a small amount of water in the canister or drawing air from inside the sump cabinet (which is humid).
 
JVU said:
The logic arguing for this setup I’ve seen is:

1) The whole point of a CO2 scrubber is to lower the CO2 in the tank water below that which you would otherwise have with the tank equilibrating to the CO2 in your room air.
2) Your skimmer, with the very high and dynamic air bubble production, is a large contributor to total gas (CO2) exchange between room air and water, so a good target.
3) If the scrubber is working to lower CO2 level in your water, that means the CO2 level in the air inside your skimmer cup will have a lower CO2 level than room air.
4) Less media will be used to extract CO2 from this low CO2 level than it would if you started with room air (less media consumption for same target low CO2 level). Without this, the skimmer cup air with low CO2 would just mix with room air eventually.
5) The humid air issue makes sense, and may be part of it, but not what I’ve seen cited as the main reason for this specific approach as opposed to just have a small amount of water in the canister or drawing air from inside the sump cabinet (which is humid).
Click to expand...
That makes sense to me and also what I thought the theory if operation.
Less co2 going to the scrubber.
Which take me to my other thoughts, how about the impact of pushing air that is full with methane and other gases from the decomposed organic in the skimmer...would that hurt?

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ofzakaria said:
That makes sense to me and also what I thought the theory if operation.
Less co2 going to the scrubber.
Which take me to my other thoughts, how about the impact of pushing air that is full with methane and other gases from the decomposed organic in the skimmer...would that hurt?

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Click to expand...

Possibly, but I always tell people not to plug up the skimmer lid holes. No reason for that.

Also how heavy are those gases? I.E. what will the atmospheric composition look like in the skimmer?
 
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