How To Raise pH?

[cccharliecc]

Is it ok to keep the BRS calcium chloride for Ca and the Magnesium Chloride and magnesium sulfate for the Mg?

 

[Nirethell]

Interesting. They all use the same media as far as I am aware and both of the ones I mentioned are colour changing - usually starting white and turning purple but sometimes the other way.

I wonder the exact reason why BRS says to add this.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/instructions/article/co2-scrubber-installation

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Is it ok to keep the BRS calcium chloride for Ca and the Magnesium Chloride and magnesium sulfate for the Mg?

yes, I designed both the recipe used by BRS, and the revised one that swaps in food grade sodium hydroxide for the sodium carbonate (soda ash) if you want a higher pH. Nothing else changes when using that revised recipe.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I wonder the exact reason why BRS says to add this.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/instructions/article/co2-scrubber-installation

You do not want to dissolve the media by getting it soaking wet, but it works better in higher humidity environments.

 

[Nirethell]

You do not want to dissolve the media by getting it soaking wet, but it works better in higher humidity environments.

Thanks for the information Randy.

 

[SteadyC]

how do you dose 2 part and kalk.....is that hard to dial in?

If I can do it, anybody can, . When I moved to kalk, I just noticed through testing that it was keeping up with my calcium, but not my alk, alk continued to drop on kalk alone. So I added soda ash as another dose. Adding just about 10 ml of soda ash daily in addition to kalk. As long as my calcium is maintained by kalk, I needed something else up add alk.

 

[griff500]

You do not want to dissolve the media by getting it soaking wet, but it works better in higher humidity environments.

That's interesting. Knowing that, I would have thought ATI and Fauna Marin might have designed it in a similar way to the BRS one, although I suppose not using water completely removes the possibility of getting the media wet. I wonder what the actual difference in pH increase is between using water and not using it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

duplicate post

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That's interesting. Knowing that, I would have thought ATI and Fauna Marin might have designed it in a similar way to the BRS one, although I suppose not using water completely removes the possibility of getting the media wet. I wonder what the actual difference in pH increase is between using water and not using it.

If you test it out, let us know, but it likely impacts capacity, not just (or maybe not even primarily), the rate of removal.

 

[griff500]

So it probably makes the media last longer rather than increasing the rate of removal. That might still be worthwhile. I might give it a try, or perhaps @Ryanbrs could answer?

 

[mitch91175]

This is how I keep my CO2 media humid

 

[mitch91175]

Frag tank reaches 8.4 with single CO2reactor and DT reaches 8.25 - 8.3. I always struggled with pH until I put on the reactors. I also have an Alkatronic keeping my ALK stable on my DT and dose Kalk hourly.

Now just a waiting game for me to get my SPS growing in the frag and rescape my DT when ready.

 

[Seminoles76]

Thank you.
I have a refugium with a Kessil H80 on it with chaeto.
I also have fresh air lines running to my skimmer.
I don't really want to go the CO2 scrubber route.

I may just see how things go for 3-6 months and monitor growth of corals. If I see decent growth then it's not really a concern. I am at a pH of 8 during the day....I just would have liked it to be around 8.2-8.3 for better coral growth.

I think you have a good plan on waiting to add the scrubber.
My experience with the scrubber. My numbers were about the same as yours. Decided to add the scrubber and alk and calcium consumption nearly doubled. My initial thought was wow this increased PH is great. I anticipated increased SPS growth as numbers continued to stay almost double from what they were. Throughout this I maintained around 8.5 dkh. However, in close to three months time I saw no increase in growth from what I experienced before despite the almost doubled consumption of Alk. Hard to say if it was coralline algae consuming more but I doubt it as it maintained the same steady growth as before. I also looked for precipitate everywhere the Mark 1 eyeball could see, in and throughout the tank and could not visually see any. Was hoping Randy could chime in and let me know if precipitation is feasible without any real signs of it in the tank. Water was visibly clear as well throughout, leading me to believe precipitate was not occurring which kept leading me to the question of where in the hell was all this extra Alk and Calcium going.

Parameters before and during scrubber.
Alk 8.5 dkh
Cal 420
Mag 1400
NO3 - 5
PO4 - .01

After three months I took the scrubber offline for the following reasons:
1. Never saw an increase in growth.
2. When you raise PH significantly, your more apt to see Alk swings. You have to stay on top of Alk more so than if you had a natural occurring PH. Ie. All of a sudden your media efficacy is lowered a bit or your skimmer doesn't pull the same air and your PH drops......Alk goes up etc, etc. I just found it more of a pain to keep Alk dialed in then before.
3. I run an oversized skimmer so the higher air draw was depleting that media fast (5-7 days max).
4. Cost to run it was too much.
5. Comfort factor of leaving on vacation etc. and having media run out and all of a sudden Alk goes sky high while I'm gone.

With that said, I'm sure there are tons of people who love the scrubber and have great success with it. I figure I'll stick with an opposite light schedule refuge and take the Alk stability.

Cheers

 

[Seminoles76]

Forgot to add one vital aspect to my post. My PH went up significantly to 8.4 in the day and nighttime low of 8.25. This was from roughly 7.95 night time low and a daytime 8.1 high.

 

[mitch91175]

Thank you.
I have a refugium with a Kessil H80 on it with chaeto.
I also have fresh air lines running to my skimmer.
I don't really want to go the CO2 scrubber route.

I may just see how things go for 3-6 months and monitor growth of corals. If I see decent growth then it's not really a concern. I am at a pH of 8 during the day....I just would have liked it to be around 8.2-8.3 for better coral growth.

You can do a scrubber as a supplement as well and get longer life from it by putting a "Y" between the skimmer and the CO2 scrubber. That way you won't exhaust your media nearly as fast and get a longer usage of it as well as get a boost in you pH. Your skimmer will pull both CO2 rich air and CO2 scrubbed air at the same time. I bet doing that you would get somewhere around 2 weeks out of the media (don't quote me on that, just a guess because I get a solid week pulling scrubbed air from 1 canister).

I personally do not see scrubbing as being expensive since I purchased 5 gallons (40lbs) of media for $143 shipping included on 2/21/18 (https://www.amronintl.com/wr-grace-sodasorb-carbon-dioxide-absorbents.html). I haven't even used 1/4 of the media since then and I am scrubbing with 3 scrubbers (2 on DT and 1 on frag). I can easily see my media lasting me 6 months at this rate. The key in buying in bulk and not the little 9lb jug from BRS (now that is where it will get expensive).

BRS is great but by my math, I would have spent $222 for the same amount of media (almost $100 more).

 

[mitch91175]

Just an idea of my pH

Display

Frag Tank

 

[mitch91175]

I also run a reverse cycle on my display with macro and it grows like crazy, but at least for me didn't keep my pH above 8.0 at night, was always around 7.7-7.8. Could be my red LED light, but with the growth I would have though it would have keep the pH higher than 7.8 at night.

I think that doing a combination of things help keep the pH higher (not to chase pH but just doing things for the tank inhabitants), i.e. running macro for pods, dosing kalk for alk/cal, running my Alkatronic to be certain my alk stays at a certain level. Scrubber is the only one that I think is the pH chasing. From what I have read (and @Randy Holmes-Farley and @Dana Riddle have mentioned) is that calcification increases with higher pH. I want to grow my SPS, so I am doing what I personally feel helps me, others will have different experiences (as with everything in this hobby ).

 

[cccharliecc]

That's what it comes down to for me....I am mostly concerned with SPS growth and want the best/fastest possible.

 

[cccharliecc]

My thing is this....If I already have tubing from my skimmer to the outside of my house.....will a CO2 scrubber really do anything? I am already piping in fresh air to the skimmer....right?

 

[SteadyC]

You can do a scrubber as a supplement as well and get longer life from it by putting a "Y" between the skimmer and the CO2 scrubber. That way you won't exhaust your media nearly as fast and get a longer usage of it as well as get a boost in you pH. Your skimmer will pull both CO2 rich air and CO2 scrubbed air at the same time. I bet doing that you would get somewhere around 2 weeks out of the media (don't quote me on that, just a guess because I get a solid week pulling scrubbed air from 1 canister).

I personally do not see scrubbing as being expensive since I purchased 5 gallons (40lbs) of media for $143 shipping included on 2/21/18 (https://www.amronintl.com/wr-grace-sodasorb-carbon-dioxide-absorbents.html). I haven't even used 1/4 of the media since then and I am scrubbing with 3 scrubbers (2 on DT and 1 on frag). I can easily see my media lasting me 6 months at this rate. The key in buying in bulk and not the little 9lb jug from BRS (now that is where it will get expensive).

BRS is great but by my math, I would have spent $222 for the same amount of media (almost $100 more).

The Y will not work, air will always take the path of least resistance. No air will,reach the skimmer that went through the CO2 media.