Why not diffuse Air?

Hebily

Hebily

My Tank \/
Mar 15, 2009
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Racine, Wi
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When you use pressurized CO2, why not just diffuse air from an air pump into the water? All you would need is an air pump, a hose, and a diffuser/reactor/canister inlet... none of the worries of pure CO2. I'm just wondering why this is not done.
 
Because the added surface agitation would de-gas whatever CO2 you're trying to introduce into the water.
 
I'm talking diffusion, though... just as you diffuse CO2, so that the gas is absorbed in the water, not in bubble form.
 
From Wikipedia entry on "Carbon Dioxide"

Carbon dioxide content in fresh air (averaged between sea-level and 10 hPa level, i.e. about 30 km altitude) varies between 0.036% (360 ppm) and 0.039% (390 ppm), depending on the location.
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So I would need to increase from 1 bubble per seond to about 2700 bubbles per second to get the same ammount of CO2 into the tank. I tend to think I would have a hard time getting that diffused very well. ;-)
 
you can introduce CO2 by simply using an airstone.. it's just the levels in air are very low. you would only be adding what air holds.

by using CO2 you are upping the ante and can pump in a higher concentration.
 
jpappy789 said:
Thought this was interesting.

Apparently if you were to supersaturate both O2 and N2 (which are both more abundant than Co2 in the atmosphere) fish would likely die.

http://books.google.com/books?id=wYtpGEbAB1cC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=fish+nitrogen+gas&source=bl&ots=e90T6cFoup&sig=tR3IGsjkeWACqPYpSNoYOg16qHo&hl=en&ei=fiaLSt_VL5D0NaeRgLsP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#v=onepage&q=fish%20nitrogen%20gas&f=false

Not sure how accurate that is but interesting nonetheless.
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Dont know much about it but wouldn't supersaturation of co2 cause the same effect as what that article suggests?

i was thinking of using another reactor just adding air into it in conjunction with my pressurized co2 system. just to ensure plenty of oxygen in the tank without any risk of co2 levels getting too high. just as an experiment to see what happens

don't plants use oxygen after their photoperiod and do most of their growing then too? so wouldn't saturating the tank with air feed the plants more?
if higher co2 levels are better for plants why wouldnt higher oxygen be better too?
 
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