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Eheim diffusor clogging



For a very long time I had assumed that all Eheim diffusor "clogging" was 
due to algae and devised a way to clean the sintered glass disk which 
method is described on http://www.wcf.com/co2iron/faq.html

More recently a user told me he had big bubbles (which he associated with 
"clogging") but no green stain on the disk.   I thought about this way way 
too long, and finally realized (1) what is going on and (2) why I never see it.

(1)  What is going on?   If you have a lot of calcium cations in your water 
(usually from contact between the water and a relatively soluble calcium 
salt) (this is called hard water) and you now bubble CO2 thru it, the CO2 
dissolves in the water, disassociates, and the carbonate anions react with 
the calcium producing calcium carbonate, which is white.   This is a pretty 
fast and complete reaction.   The result is the deposition of a white crust 
on the disk (almost invisible).  The fix is to dissolve the crust off with 
a strong acid, this procedure is now described on the web page cited above.

(2) Why I never see it?   I have very soft water.

Next case.....




--
Dave Gomberg, San Francisco       gomberg at wcf dot com
NEW Planted Aquaria Magazine:        http://www.wcf.com/pam
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