do too many pets really lower my ph

[sick1166]

my aquarium service guy tells me the problems I have with low ph is my 3 birds and 3 dogs are the cause of this.
can this be true

 

[brandon429]

Maybe in his opinion. My reef will be fine regardless of respiration going on around the tank and one way that’s attained is I dont care what my pH is, it’s not tested. There is not a nano reef which can’t run just fine on weekly water changes and whatever slight variations come with that home to home.

if you have a huge tank where common water exchange isn’t practical / exporting internal waste vs concerning ambient waste / then there are special ways to assess that truth and it’s the bubble test they’ve used here before


assertively bubbling a tank water sample using known clean air, outside, to see if pH changes due to aeration off gassing co2

if it does, then you had high levels inside where the tank is


choose carefully your measure, I know few listed param readings that are true. We approximate then we buy something, this is normal reefing program mode

no two readers agree on samples, pH measure accuracy will matter because it’s so precise. I bet two testers give two different readings. It might be chemical heresy to claim it doesn’t matter, but this year alone we will produce thousands of running or fixed up rebooted nanos, and pH will never be cared about whatsoever.

choose carefully your reactance level threshold even if the reading is correct, nowadays nobody cares if you hit 7.8 our sps do just fine. The other params matter more. I think in about two hundred thousand excellent running nanos and picos, four total owners are testing for pH.

 

[Reef.]

my aquarium service guy tells me the problems I have with low ph is my 3 birds and 3 dogs are the cause of this.
can this be true

yes in a small room with no fresh air, add a couple of people and that will definitely affect the ph.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

my aquarium service guy tells me the problems I have with low ph is my 3 birds and 3 dogs are the cause of this.
can this be true

Wow- tagging along, but the only way I can see that happening would be high CO2 in the room, and pets don’t have enough biomass to really push that up- room ventilation is a much more important criteria. I have a CO2 meter and never saw any correlation between high CO2 and number of animals in a space (I work at a Zoo).
Jay

 

[burningmime]

The CO2 in the air outside your home is lower than in your home (at least if you live in a place where you keep your windows closed). The birds don't contribute much, but mammals (people and dogs) produce a lot of CO2. And high CO2 air = low pH when it mixes with the water in your tank.

Instead of getting rid of your dogs, just grab a CO2 scrubber for your skimmer. Or get better ventilation in your house (open a window, air exchanger, etc).

 

[brandon429]

How do we know the readings taken are accurate


if we believed everyone’s .25 ammonia reading, our cycling science would still be in the dark ages.



whats the reactance cutoff? Is this a 7.9 all systems go reaction, or did you hit 7.0 to justify the care


fact: we all accept any stated reading as totally accurate I’m guilty too. It the occasional test kit comparison threads that should keep us humble

 

[Rockhead]

my aquarium service guy tells me the problems I have with low ph is my 3 birds and 3 dogs are the cause of this.
can this be true

Yes it is true and also how many people are in the house. I have a 1200 Square foot house 4 people 1 dog 1 cat. If I didn’t supply my skimmer with a fresh air line I can not get my ph above 8, when we go on vacation and no one is home it can hit 8.46. My ph is steady @ 8.28-8.34 almost every day with my 1/2” air supplying my skimmer.

 

[brandon429]

Important to note: if it ran 7.8 24x7 the same reef would be fine


nobody has to keep a nano reef outside or vent one from there to grow same sps and lps, large reef owners are walking on chemistry eggshells constantly for pH

we never assessed tank volume or mass test misreading

with smaller water volumes a breakpoint happens where testing only salinity and temp is required to grow the same corals. Wonder if this tank is at that point, no losses or stress was reported, whole thread is based on a test read

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

my aquarium service guy tells me the problems I have with low ph is my 3 birds and 3 dogs are the cause of this.
can this be true

What is the daily pH low?

Elevated CO2 in the water is always the "cause" of the low pH if alkalinity is normal, and most often that elevated CO2 is from elevated CO2 in the air.

pets contribute, but so do you and other people, gas stoves and ovens, etc.

 

[Rockhead]

Important to note: if it ran 7.8 24x7 the same reef would be fine


nobody has to keep a nano reef outside or vent one from there to grow same sps and lps, large reef owners are walking on chemistry eggshells constantly for pH

we never assessed tank volume or mass test misreading


with smaller water volumes a breakpoint happens where testing only salinity and temp is required to grow the same corals. Wonder if this tank is at that point, no losses or stress was reported, whole thread is based on a test read

You are correct. Point of my statement was Stability and I couldn’t do that on my 150 with everyone in the house my swing was way to much.

 

[brandon429]

curious how the bubbled water sample test shows on the tank

 

[KyOsIBa515]

This is maybe something Randy knows or can answer. However, not knowing what his pH low for the day is...most everyone experiences the low during the night.

I had stated in another comment about reverse cycling for people with refugiums. Keep the refugium light on opposite of the display to help promote photosynthesis and oxygen throughout the night so less CO2 will be consumed.

For people who do not run a refugium can running an airstone in the sump throughout the night give off the possible benefits of that? In theory I suppose it may would work.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

For people who do not run a refugium can running an airstone in the sump throughout the night give off the possible benefits of that? In theory I suppose it may would work.

Not in most cases, unless you use outside air. It will only help if the low CO2 is caused by inadequate aeration, which is quite uncommon in a reef tank).

Much more often, low ph is caused by high CO2 in the home air, and more aeration with high CO2 air will only bring it to equilibrium with that high CO2 air, which may actually lower the pH more.

It is easy to determine if this will help using the aeration test in my pH articles that helps determien the source of teh excess CO2:

pH And The Reef Aquarium
http://www.reefedition.com/ph-and-the-reef-aquarium/

The Aeration Test

Some of the possible causes of low pH listed above require an effort to diagnose. Problems 3 and 4 are quite common, and here is a way to distinguish them. Remove a cup of tank water and measure its pH. Then aerate it for an hour with an airstone using outside air. Its pH should rise if it is unusually low for the measured alkalinity (Figure 2). Then repeat the same experiment on a new cup of water using inside air. If its pH also rises, then the aquarium’s pH will rise simply with more aeration because it is only the aquarium that contains excess carbon dioxide. If the pH does not rise in the cup (or rises very little) when aerating with indoor air, then that air likely contains excess CO2, and more aeration with that same air will not solve the low pH problem (although aeration with fresher air should). Be careful implementing this test if the outside aeration test results in a large temperature change (more than 5°C or 10°F), because such changes alone impact pH measurements.

 

[josephxsxn]

Think many others already gave great info but wanted to share some perspective on exhaled concentrate of co2... because we can trust wiki under Concentration they make note that exhaled air is about 100x more concentrated with co2 then the ambient air itself (up to 5%). I would think anything living can then increase the co2 levels if the ventilation isn't enough to exchange it with other fresh air.

Breathing - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[LeftyReefer]

My tank in my basement always has low pH.

I totally believe your service guy.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My tank in my basement always has low pH.

I totally believe your service guy.

While we fully understand how exhaled CO2 impacts pH, I'm not sure I follow your comment. Do you have lots of birds and dogs in your basement?

Basements will not have elevated CO2 unless there is a source of CO2 in it. My basement, for example, will not have elevated CO2. It may have less CO2 than the upper floors, since people do not spend long there and none of the appliances vent inside. OTOH, upstairs we have a gas stove, people, and dogs (no birds at the moment though).