Do I chase Ph?

[cumbeje]

I have 700 gallon reef tank with calcium reactor. Hear all the time that Ph should be higher. That isn't simple with calcium reactor. Any reason to even care about this?

 

[Velcro]

There's some evidence out there that hitting 8.2 for some part of the day results in more growth. Who knows if that holds true for all species. I think your ph is probably fine, but a cheap and effective way to help would be a co2 scrubber on your skimmer. You could also add a second chamber of calcium reactor media which helps neutralize some of the co2 before entering the tank. One last thing would be cutting back on your calcium reactor dose and adding kalk to your ATO.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

First, I'd say the term "chase" is most often used by people who feel pH is unworthy of attention.

How many people use the same about people controlling alkalinity?

That said, your pH is adequately high for a fine reef tank. If you want higher growth, raising pH may help provide it. So may higher alkalinity (although I do not know what yours is).

If rapid coral growth is not the primary goal, then any pH over 7.8 is clearly adequate based on the experience of reefers.

 

[cumbeje]

First, I'd say the term "chase" is most often used by people who feel pH is unworthy of attention.

How many people use the same about people controlling alkalinity?

That said, your pH is adequately high for a fine reef tank. If you want higher growth, raising pH may help provide it. So may higher alkalinity (although I do not know what yours is).

If rapid coral growth is not the primary goal, then any pH over 7.8 is clearly adequate based on the experience of reefers.

Sorry.I meant chase a higher pH than i have now. I keep my alk steady at 9 dkh from reading your article about calcium reactors tend to have lower ph so higher alk could benefit corals. It is a 700 gallon mixed SPS/LPS tank mostly sps. So anything I do must be done in large scale. I considered C02 scrubber but this would have to be connected to a commercial grade RK2 25 PE Protein Fractionator. I can not imagine what the cost of media would be.

Since this is a newer setup less than one year and heavily stocked with frags would i see a significant growth of sps frags to make it worth while to chase a higher number?

 

[Velcro]

Sorry.I meant chase a higher pH than i have now. I keep my alk steady at 9 dkh from reading your article about calcium reactors tend to have lower ph so higher alk could benefit corals. It is a 700 gallon mixed SPS/LPS tank mostly sps. So anything I do must be done in large scale. I considered C02 scrubber but this would have to be connected to a commercial grade RK2 25 PE Protein Fractionator. I can not imagine what the cost of media would be.

Since this is a newer setup less than one year and heavily stocked with frags would i see a significant growth of sps frags to make it worth while to chase a higher number?

I have a solution for you. The way my lifereef skimmer works is that the venturi draws from the skimmer cup. This is by design to keep humid air going through the venturi and prevent it from clogging. I simply place my CO2 scrubber between the skimmer cup and the venturi. So, the tube goes from:

skimmer cup--->CO2 scrubber-->Venturi

The benefit from this is two fold:
1) You are essentially recycling relatively LOW CO2 containing air from the tank. So, the media lasts longer than just drawing high CO2 room air.
2) This keeps the CO2 media humid and makes it last WAY longer.

I get several weeks out of one fill of a regular sized BRS reactor. My skimmer draws a ton of air for a 100 gallon system and the benefit is obvious.

 

[cumbeje]

How would I do that in this setup?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

IMO IME. As the tank matures the ph(with normal situations and decent husbandry) will steadily increase as more and more organisms that uptake co2 are introduced and also grow larger and uptake more and more co2.

I belive this is also why many with younger tanks are encouraged not to chase ph as it is going to improve naturally on its own, and simply monitor it to insure it's making progress.

 

[Reefer1978]

I went through a very similar situation. My "chase" was stability, not higher Ph readings. Due to climate in NY state (90F one day, 65F) the next, we are either on AC or open the windows, and my Ph was all over the place. I bought a CO2 reader and tested my house, 500 ppm on fresh air days all the way to 1300 after windows are closed for 48 hours, as you can imagine PH reading were all over the place.

My goal with the the tank is harder SPS, so I need stability. I am not chasing growth. As much as I wanted to avoid it, I drilled through the floor to drop a pipe into the basement, and then out of the house through the wall to draw in fresh outside air for the skimmer. All this was done on the 25th. Now I am slowly letting the tank adjust to the new PH (day one had the skimmer shut off at Ph 8.0, today it will shut off at 8.1, and so on until it stabilizes).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Sorry.I meant chase a higher pH than i have now. I keep my alk steady at 9 dkh from reading your article about calcium reactors tend to have lower ph so higher alk could benefit corals. It is a 700 gallon mixed SPS/LPS tank mostly sps. So anything I do must be done in large scale. I considered C02 scrubber but this would have to be connected to a commercial grade RK2 25 PE Protein Fractionator. I can not imagine what the cost of media would be.

Since this is a newer setup less than one year and heavily stocked with frags would i see a significant growth of sps frags to make it worth while to chase a higher number?

I think it likely that growth will increase if you boost pH, and also probably if you increase alkalinity. Not sure which is the easier course, or if either is going to make a huge difference.

Do you have an ATO? Limewater in the ATO is often fairly easy.

 

[Centerline]

I think it likely that growth will increase if you boost pH, and also probably if you increase alkalinity. Not sure which is the easier course, or if either is going to make a huge difference.

Do you have an ATO? Limewater in the ATO is often fairly easy.

I'm going to pipe in with it may indeed make a huge difference. Once I got a little better control of my PH issues (based on your help) I immediately started seeing good growth on frags that had done very little for well over a year.

 

[cumbeje]

I think it likely that growth will increase if you boost pH, and also probably if you increase alkalinity. Not sure which is the easier course, or if either is going to make a huge difference.

Do you have an ATO? Limewater in the ATO is often fairly easy.

My concern with limewater is that it is another method of alk adjustment and I have my calcuim reactor dialed in at 9. Wouldn't there be concern that adding another method of alk I could spike alk.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My concern with limewater is that it is another method of alk adjustment and I have my calcuim reactor dialed in at 9. Wouldn't there be concern that adding another method of alk I could spike alk.

You might have to adjust the reactor, but you might actually need to increase it since raising pH (however you do it) increases demand for calcium and alkalinity.

 

[KJoFan]

I went through a very similar situation. My "chase" was stability, not higher Ph readings. Due to climate in NY state (90F one day, 65F) the next, we are either on AC or open the windows, and my Ph was all over the place. I bought a CO2 reader and tested my house, 500 ppm on fresh air days all the way to 1300 after windows are closed for 48 hours, as you can imagine PH reading were all over the place.

My goal with the the tank is harder SPS, so I need stability. I am not chasing growth. As much as I wanted to avoid it, I drilled through the floor to drop a pipe into the basement, and then out of the house through the wall to draw in fresh outside air for the skimmer. All this was done on the 25th. Now I am slowly letting the tank adjust to the new PH (day one had the skimmer shut off at Ph 8.0, today it will shut off at 8.1, and so on until it stabilizes).

Same situation here. Windows closed pH dips to 7.6-7.7, usually right around 7.7. Windows open, it sits around 8.1-8.2. I do have a fresh air intake coming directly into my air handler in my house, I am wondering if I keep that open year around if that will be enough to help stabilize pH.

I don't mind low pH necessarily but it wreak's havoc with my KH. I only use kalk in the ATO at this point, but recent readings went as such:

9/21 (windows closed): 8.4
9/26 (windows open for a day or so): 7.6
9/27 (windows still open): 6.8

I don't like the drop, so I've added more kalk to the ato, but my concern is if windows go closed again (they will eventually) KH will spike upwards. I will likely be switching to a doser soon, but I'll still see that instability with KH regardless. I'm trying to resist panic with a 6.8 reading and hoping the kalk will bring it back up slowly.

 

[salty joe]

IMO IME. As the tank matures the ph(with normal situations and decent husbandry) will steadily increase as more and more organisms that uptake co2 are introduced and also grow larger and uptake more and more co2.

.

Yeah but if you're using a calcium reactor, the more stuff grows the more CO2 is added by cranking up the reactor.

My concern with limewater is that it is another method of alk adjustment and I have my calcuim reactor dialed in at 9. Wouldn't there be concern that adding another method of alk I could spike alk.

If you have growing frags, won't you have to constantly adjust alk anyway? Maybe start with dilute kalk and turn down reactor a little bit and work your way up to saturated kalk.

 

[North Borders]

Another option is a CO2 scrubber that is used inline with your protein skimmer. I struggled with low pH for a while. Where I live it's hot in the summer and blisteringly cold in the winter, so opening up the house wasn't an option most of the time. With the CO2 scrubber, my tank sits comfortably at 8.35-8.5 pH nearly 24/7. When it starts dipping down towards 8.1 then I know it's time to change the CO2 beads. (I get about 3-5 weeks out of a cartridge)

 

[dangros]

has anyone seen or can verify this method? https://www.reefnation.com/calcium-reactor-modification-part-2-j-chamber/
I suspect it really doesnt work since there's been no follow-up or response on threads. I bet his readings were false due to the air getting into the pH probe. Having said that, I'm trying what he did initially, which is to let the effluent drip over some rocks/media to aerate it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

has anyone seen or can verify this method? https://www.reefnation.com/calcium-reactor-modification-part-2-j-chamber/
I suspect it really doesnt work since there's been no follow-up or response on threads. I bet his readings were false due to the air getting into the pH probe. Having said that, I'm trying what he did initially, which is to let the effluent drip over some rocks/media to aerate it.

A couple of issues.

He doesn't report what alkalinity is actually present in the effluent water. That is critical. He said he would follow up. I couldn't find that follow up.

If there really is similar amounts of alkalinity to what folks usually get (20-40 dKH, typically), then the only way that last chamber can be raising the pH to 8.0 is by blowing off CO2 to the air (not primarily dissolving more media), and even then I'm skeptical. Such a solution would be very much more supersaturated than normal seawater and would strongly tend to precipitate calcium carbonate back onto the aragonite.

That said, people have come up with various ways to try to aerate the water before returning it to the tank, but these are not that widely used.

 

[GoPitt88]

Another option is a CO2 scrubber that is used inline with your protein skimmer. I struggled with low pH for a while. Where I live it's hot in the summer and blisteringly cold in the winter, so opening up the house wasn't an option most of the time. With the CO2 scrubber, my tank sits comfortably at 8.35-8.5 pH nearly 24/7. When it starts dipping down towards 8.1 then I know it's time to change the CO2 beads. (I get about 3-5 weeks out of a cartridge)

Yep...I started using a CO2 scrubber as well due to low ph, and now I'm getting exactly the same results as you! I also get about 4 to 5 weeks out of a batch. Bought mine at Bulk Reef Supply online.

 

[cumbeje]

I am going to try to run a airline out a roof vent to see if I can bring the Ph up with outside air. I bought a CO2 monitor from a mazon and read 950 ppm in the room.

 

[dangros]

there seems to be a wide range of CO2 testers. What is the cheapest, most reliable thing to get?