I am wondering how pH affects bacterial activity? We have all had the situation where you take something offline that has had tank water flowing through/in it, and then later, upon opening or cleaning it, you get the pungent aroma of hydrogen sulfide. The organics in the trapped water being broken down by bacteria being the driver of that effect. Is it affected or moderated by pH?
I recently changed my CaRx to shutdown every night and only use Kalk dosing between 12 AM and 6 AM. I was wondering if there would be any detrimental impact from the period of no new water flow through it. I also made another change, recently reversed it, and that is the source of this query.
I have a small inline canister that is filled with ReMag. It sits after my secondary chamber, and before my aeration tower that strips excess CO2. I was getting concerned that I might be adding too much Mg, so I added an external pass through line and closed the ball valves on each end of the inline Mg canister. This effectively isolated the Mg canister from the system.
Fast forward a month or so, and I had a change of heart and decided I wanted to resume the dosing of Mg through the inline canister. I expected the trapped water in it to be nasty, nasty water, filled with hydrogen sulfide, so I carefully removed the end end cap of the canister, intending to dump the contents out and re-fill it with fresh tank water. When I opened it, nothing, no smell, the water smelled and appeared to be just like any other water. That really surprised me. Why did this not go skunky?
My CaRx runs in the high 5's for pH (5.8-5.9) as it is a saturation style reactor. The secondary chamber, itself an old Geo 618 with no CO2 hooked up, runs between 6.12 - 6.15 pH. The inline Mg canister is on the output of the secondary. So I expect it's pH to be somewhere above 6.2.
Does the a pH in the 5's (in the CaRx) reduce the bacterial population in the effluent enough to make the breakdown of organics in the trapped water downstream in the inline Mg canister a non-issue?
I recently changed my CaRx to shutdown every night and only use Kalk dosing between 12 AM and 6 AM. I was wondering if there would be any detrimental impact from the period of no new water flow through it. I also made another change, recently reversed it, and that is the source of this query.
I have a small inline canister that is filled with ReMag. It sits after my secondary chamber, and before my aeration tower that strips excess CO2. I was getting concerned that I might be adding too much Mg, so I added an external pass through line and closed the ball valves on each end of the inline Mg canister. This effectively isolated the Mg canister from the system.
Fast forward a month or so, and I had a change of heart and decided I wanted to resume the dosing of Mg through the inline canister. I expected the trapped water in it to be nasty, nasty water, filled with hydrogen sulfide, so I carefully removed the end end cap of the canister, intending to dump the contents out and re-fill it with fresh tank water. When I opened it, nothing, no smell, the water smelled and appeared to be just like any other water. That really surprised me. Why did this not go skunky?
My CaRx runs in the high 5's for pH (5.8-5.9) as it is a saturation style reactor. The secondary chamber, itself an old Geo 618 with no CO2 hooked up, runs between 6.12 - 6.15 pH. The inline Mg canister is on the output of the secondary. So I expect it's pH to be somewhere above 6.2.
Does the a pH in the 5's (in the CaRx) reduce the bacterial population in the effluent enough to make the breakdown of organics in the trapped water downstream in the inline Mg canister a non-issue?
