This is mostly copied from a YouTube comment I posted a few weeks ago. Brought onto the blog because Google can be capricious, and to improve discoverability. There are a bunch of claims out there about the Söchting Oxydator, about how it can boost oxygen levels, clarify aquarium water, and keep your fish healthier.
But is it even possible for it to live up to the hype? Based on my quick back-of-the-envelope calculations, I think so.
To be clear, I am not a chemist, just a general nerd. Someone more knowledgeable could and should think through this.
What is The Söchting Oxydator?
The Sochting Oxydator is still a mystery to me; there are a lot of pseudoscience-y claims out there. Basically, it’s a ceramic vessel that you fill with hydrogen peroxide solution, and it slowly reacts or releases the peroxide into the aquarium. There are a bunch of claims that slow-dosing hydrogen peroxide into your aquarium can help with specific problems aquarists have. With the oxydator though, I’ve read some dubious claims about being the “freshest oxygen” 🙄 that I don’t quite udnerstand. To borrow a few marketing phrases from a few retailers’ listings:
- Söchting Oxydators breakdown hydrogen peroxide into pure oxygen and water (2 H2O2—->2 H20 + O2) using a special catalyst. (The Shrimp Tank)
- The Söchting Oxydator adds oxygen continuously and slowly to your aquarium. (TST)
- The additional oxygen helps provide oxygen for aquatic critters and the beneficial bacteria in your tank. The oxygen produced is almost immediately dissolved into the water so there are little to no bubbles produced. (TST)
- Due to the Oxydator’s oxidizing capacity, the water quality will be improved and harmful contaminants in the water will be neutralised and In the summer, it is effective at fighting algae. (Amazon)
It does make tiny bubbles, which folks on YouTube have documented in their videos, and it’s cute how the shrimp like to hang around it. (Happy Little Whatever on YT)
Could it work?
It would be great to cut through all the marketing claims and get an objective breakdown of how/when it’s useful! Primarily it seems like a good way to slow-dose H₂O₂ into the tank to keep it healthy.
Again, I’m not a chemist, but by my quick calculations, maybe it does work to keep oxygen levels up?
- The Oxydator A (for up to 400L aquariums) has a 150mL capacity
- Which is 9mL of hydrogen peroxide (at 6% concentration)
- That’s 13g of H₂O₂.
- 0.4 mol, since peroxide weighs 32g per mol
- \(2H_2O \longrightarrow 2H_2O + O_2\), assuming all of the peroxide breaks down, instead of reacting with organic compounds in the water.
- That’s 0.4 mol water, and 0.2 mol oxygen
- It will turn into ~7g of water (H₂O = 18g/mol), and 6g of oxygen (O₂ = 32g/mol).
- Fish like 5-8ppm of dissolved O₂. Atlas Scientific
- In a 50 gallon tank (10.5mol H₂O), we’d want to have 0.05mol to 0.08mol of dissolved oxygen.
- Which is 1.6g to 2.5g of O₂ continuously available in the water.
- That sounds reasonable for the Sochting Oxydator to supply for at least a few weeks!
Depending on how quickly fish consume it, and the amount of oxygen absorbed through the water’s surface, the oxydator is providing around 4x the oxygen concentration that we would want to sustain in the tank for our fish friends.
If my math/chemistry calculations hold out, I could see how it’s great for adding O₂ without losing all your dissolved CO₂ to surface agitation.
Next step: try it and see
I want to get one of these for myself. If I do, I’ll run some tests, as methodically as I can, and share my findings here on how well the Sochting Oxydator does (or doesn’t!) work. I wouldn’t mind removing the air pump from my indoor pond, if I can get away with it.
— Varun
Who’s Varun? Currently Product at CLEAR. I’ve been in Product at Noom, Hotel Tech with ALICE, now Actabl, and I was previously founder of an HR tech startup Disqovery. I have worn many hats, and I like making things. I also like talking business. You can reach me at me@varunmehta.com, Mastodon, Github, and LinkedIn.