Co2 Scrubber experience

Cpage101

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Is anyone running a Co2 scrubber on their system? I am having a hard time getting above 8.1 during the day and it drops to 7.97 at night. I have a newer house ant it is pretty tight so I am guessing I have high Co2 as the tank is in. The living room. What are your experiences. I know is comes with a cost but I would love to be able to maintain 8.2-8.3 range. BTW my skimmer airline is. Already run to the outside currently so I am guessing Co2 is pretty high in the house. TIA


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So for a while at my old residence I made a homemade co2 scrubber. All I took was a Gatorade bottle, air line tubing, pelletilized soda lime. What you do is, drill a hole in the cap of a Gatorade bottle, fill up the bottle with the pellets, the hole that’s in the cap take one end of the airline hose and glue it in place. The other end of that hose hook up to the air inlet of the protein skimmer and bam homemade co2 scrubber. Worked great for me until I bought my house and no longer have an issue with ph.
 
So for a while at my old residence I made a homemade co2 scrubber. All I took was a Gatorade bottle, air line tubing, pelletilized soda lime. What you do is, drill a hole in the cap of a Gatorade bottle, fill up the bottle with the pellets, the hole that’s in the cap take one end of the airline hose and glue it in place. The other end of that hose hook up to the air inlet of the protein skimmer and bam homemade co2 scrubber. Worked great for me until I bought my house and no longer have an issue with ph.

Did you hook the tubing from the Gatorade bottle to the Venturi on the pump directly? I read you can do that but then how do you control the airflow to the pump if you bypass the silencer?
 
So for a while at my old residence I made a homemade co2 scrubber. All I took was a Gatorade bottle, air line tubing, pelletilized soda lime. What you do is, drill a hole in the cap of a Gatorade bottle, fill up the bottle with the pellets, the hole that’s in the cap take one end of the airline hose and glue it in place. The other end of that hose hook up to the air inlet of the protein skimmer and bam homemade co2 scrubber. Worked great for me until I bought my house and no longer have an issue with ph.

Did you hook the tubing from the Gatorade bottle to the Venturi on the pump directly? I read you can do that but then how do you control the airflow to the pump if you bypass the silencer?

Yes, direct to the Venturi is how I ran it. I just let it run 100% open. Worked fine for me. I did it for about 3 years.
 
I prob should have mentioned you need to drill small holes in the bottle itself to let the air pass through.
 
Yes, direct to the Venturi is how I ran it. I just let it run 100% open. Worked fine for me. I did it for about 3 years.

Thanks for reply.

Where did you get the media from? It looks pretty pricey they say can average like $10 weekly.

I had to dial my skimmer in pretty precisely with the air intake I wonder how it would be affected by this kind of setup.
 
Yes, direct to the Venturi is how I ran it. I just let it run 100% open. Worked fine for me. I did it for about 3 years.

Thanks for reply.

Where did you get the media from? It looks pretty pricey they say can average like $10 weekly.

I had to dial my skimmer in pretty precisely with the air intake I wonder how it would be affected by this kind of setup.

you can purchase the soda lime media through BRS as well as online through a medical supply company. it is pricy from my research and until you start running the scrubber you really do not know how often you will need to change your media. Because this would be based on the amount of co2 in the house. i’m just trying to see if chasing the stable 8.2-8.3 PH # is worth it from others opinions


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You can also run the intake side of the reactor from your skimmer cup lid so you recirculate the low co2 air through the media again.
 
you can purchase the soda lime media through BRS as well as online through a medical supply company. it is pricy from my research and until you start running the scrubber you really do not know how often you will need to change your media. Because this would be based on the amount of co2 in the house. i’m just trying to see if chasing the stable 8.2-8.3 PH # is worth it from others opinions


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Me too sorry to hijack your thread but you got me all interested!!
 
When I purchased it I got it in bulk from a medical supply company. I just went thru my email and I could not find where it was from unfortunately. I do remember it wasn’t super expensive, but that’s relative. Everything in this hobby costs money lol
 
In the process of making it
Got two Brs reactors and putting them inline. Going to run it from outside air into the reactor. Running dual inline so when I see the first go I can just change it without hiccups in ph.
 
In the process of making it
Got two Brs reactors and putting them inline. Going to run it from outside air into the reactor. Running dual inline so when I see the first go I can just change it without hiccups in ph.

keep me posted[emoji106]


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That defies the reason to run them inline. You’d have to know exactly when it is starting to get exhausted and you’ll throw a bunch of unused media in the trash. Trying to make it stretch out as much as possible lol
 
That defies the reason to run them inline. You’d have to know exactly when it is starting to get exhausted and you’ll throw a bunch of unused media in the trash. Trying to make it stretch out as much as possible lol

the stuff I was looking at turns purple when the media is exhausted. I get it now [emoji106]


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From what I’ve read most people have issues when it’s starting to get exhausted and ph starts dropping but the color isn’t completely changed yet. This way you can exhaust the first one without fearing a ph drop.
 
From what I’ve read most people have issues when it’s starting to get exhausted and ph starts dropping but the color isn’t completely changed yet. This way you can exhaust the first one without fearing a ph drop.

ahhhh! keep me posted with how well it works. post pics of your setup when u are done


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