CO2 scrubber

I have one I made on my tank.  All you need is pelletized lime. You can buy the expensive lime that is designed to be used for scuba tank filling, which the biggest advantage to that is it has very uniform pellet size, which means it packs better. 

Reality, any lime will absorb CO2, but you can't use powder, it has to be in pellets.  I put a tube to the air intake of my scrubber, put the tube in the top of a sports drinking bottle I bought at DI for 50 cents, then drilled a ton of tiny holes witha drillbit in the bottom of the drink container.  Filled the inside with the pelletized lime you buy at Home Depot in the garden section.  I think it is somehting like 6 bucks and it is enough to fill my drink container 4 or 5 times. 

all you want is to split the air so it goes around the pellets.  the more surface contact with the air you have and the lime pellets, the better it will scrub.   You are NOT putting it in the water, just taking stuff out of the air, so the exact type of lime pellets are much less critical.


Lowes did NOT have any pellet lime, Home Depot was the only one I found.  I got mine at the Home Depot on Redwood and 90th south.

below is some cell pics of my massively cool uber scrubber, DI price sticker still on bottle!!!

Don't bash me to hard for asking but why do you need this?  How does it help the tank?

Lewy,

My 300 gallon tank is in my basement.  So there is not a lot of flow of air, and CO2 is heavier than air, so it tends to collect at the low point of a house.  So the air intake of your skimmer is sucking in air from the surroundings, so if your house is closed up, tank in a part of your house without a lot of outside air flow, then you will get low pH.  CO2 when dissolved in water drops the pH.  I had real trouble keeping my pH where it needs to be until I put my little scrubber on.  It make about a 0.5 change in my pH for the good.  IF you don't have a lot of CO2 and your pH is fine, you don't need it.

Thanks everyone. I was going to add this to intake on my skimmer also.

sounds like the perfect application of my DI 50 cent bottle with a piece of tubing and the cheap lime pellets from HOme depot.  I have less than 7 dollars total in my scrubber including enough lime to run it for months and months.