Clownfishy
Well-Known Member
I wanted to share my experience raising my pH and show my the use of Soda Lime granules in a C02 Scrubber. I have provided a summary at the end of this post for those that want to skip the explanation of my journey and go straight to my findings!
Background
I have been keeping reef aquariums for many years and have always been fairly successful with coral growth to the point were I needed to frag corals continually. Well, that was until I moved to a different part of the UK and setup a brand new system. For nearly two years, although the corals I have kept have grown, I have never managed the growth I once had and have battled with hair algae. The latter point is for another thread!
Before I explain my experiences, here are some details on water parameters and dosage -
Aquarium water volume 185l (47.5 US gallons)
Alkalinity: 7.5 - 8.0 dKH
Calcium: 450-480
Nitrate: 3-5
Phosphate: 0 (Salifert kit but this later turned out to not be true and was more 0.1)
Magnesium: 1380 - 1425
Salt: Reef Crystals
Kalkwasser dosage: 2l per week (0.52 US gallons)
Calcium/Alkalinity dosage: None, water changes kept these at the levels listed above
Magnesium dosage 1 spoonful of BIO Magnesium every week / every other week
Water Changes: 20l (5.28 US gallons) per week
How I found out I have a pH problem
A couple of months ago, I brought an Apex controller which although is not quite the Apex controller you guys in the USA receive (that is also for another thread to vent the frustration us non-US "customers" have with Neptune!), it did allow me to start monitoring pH correctly. As soon as I configured the Apex, I knew I had a pH problem and to my amazement and concern, my pH was not only low, it struggled to reach 8.00 on a good day. I had recently been using a Salifert pH test kit but this was not that obvious what my pH was and I was only testing at a point in time and never during the night when pH is obviously at its lowest. The Apex quickly showed the lows and the not so highs of my pH
I immediately considered the C02 level in the house. It is probably worth mentioning the type of house I live in and why I first thought it could be C02. The house is 200 year old cottage constructed with 3ft think stone walls. As the UK is not known for its warm weather, we have fitted the house with triple glassed windows so with 3 people and 2 dogs living in the small cottage, it was a good bet that we had locked in some C02 with little ventilation. I therefore immediately put the windows on lock so they were open just slightly (in the room where the aquarium was located). This certainly made a difference but I still struggled to reach a pH much over 8.00 and on less windy nights, the fresh air hardly made its way into the house with the pH dropping below 7.70. Also, leaving the windows like this is not a long term solution as it could become quite cold in the winter months.
The next step was to attempt to link the air intake from the skimmer to pull air in from the outside. As mentioned previously, my walls are 3ft thick so I didn't fancy drilling a hole through these walls! Luckily, the reef aquarium is upstairs so I took a different approach. I drilled a hole into the loft and installed a 15mm (approx 1/2") tube into the loft placing the inlet of the pipe in the eves that lets in air to aerate the loft. I thought this would be the silver bullet and I started to see my pH raise as high as 8.06 but I was still surprised to see it dropping below 7.9 at night even with my windows slightly open. These drops were on days where the wind was low, but even so, the pH only hit 8.06 on a good day so this still was not as high as I would like.
So I brought some Soda Lime granules and converted an old DI resin cartridge into a C02 scrubber and connected it to my skimmer. I use a Tunze 9012 skimmer which pulls in 400l/h of air. On May 12th, after a week running air from the loft, I installed the C02 scrubber still pulling air in from the loft and within just a few hours, my pH started to raise way beyond anything I had seen before. In the first 12 hours running the C02 scrubber the pH reached a high of 8.17. What impressed me further was that during that night, it dropped to just 8.10. Even more surprising, the following day, it continued to climb to 8.2 during the following day/night so I had to reduce my kalkwasser dosage from 500ml dosed throughout the night/early morning to 260ml just to ensure the pH did night rise too high!
As to be expected, the first day my pH climbed to over 8.1, my alkalinity and calcium started to drop so I started dosing daily. In the past, I rarely had to dose and my water changes were enough to keep these in check.
The next test I did was to have the C02 scrubber pulling air from the outside (via the loft) and closed the windows where the aquarium is located. That evening, I noticed an immediate drop in pH which continued through the night even with an increase kalkwaser dosing to attempt to prevent this. Even dosing 480ml of kalkwasser during the night did not prevent pH from dropping and I cannot evaporate any more water to increase the dosing further.
I have opened one of the windows slightly and am not seeing the lows during the night anymore.
Summary
I hope the above is useful to someone
Background
I have been keeping reef aquariums for many years and have always been fairly successful with coral growth to the point were I needed to frag corals continually. Well, that was until I moved to a different part of the UK and setup a brand new system. For nearly two years, although the corals I have kept have grown, I have never managed the growth I once had and have battled with hair algae. The latter point is for another thread!
Before I explain my experiences, here are some details on water parameters and dosage -
Aquarium water volume 185l (47.5 US gallons)
Alkalinity: 7.5 - 8.0 dKH
Calcium: 450-480
Nitrate: 3-5
Phosphate: 0 (Salifert kit but this later turned out to not be true and was more 0.1)
Magnesium: 1380 - 1425
Salt: Reef Crystals
Kalkwasser dosage: 2l per week (0.52 US gallons)
Calcium/Alkalinity dosage: None, water changes kept these at the levels listed above
Magnesium dosage 1 spoonful of BIO Magnesium every week / every other week
Water Changes: 20l (5.28 US gallons) per week
How I found out I have a pH problem
A couple of months ago, I brought an Apex controller which although is not quite the Apex controller you guys in the USA receive (that is also for another thread to vent the frustration us non-US "customers" have with Neptune!), it did allow me to start monitoring pH correctly. As soon as I configured the Apex, I knew I had a pH problem and to my amazement and concern, my pH was not only low, it struggled to reach 8.00 on a good day. I had recently been using a Salifert pH test kit but this was not that obvious what my pH was and I was only testing at a point in time and never during the night when pH is obviously at its lowest. The Apex quickly showed the lows and the not so highs of my pH
I immediately considered the C02 level in the house. It is probably worth mentioning the type of house I live in and why I first thought it could be C02. The house is 200 year old cottage constructed with 3ft think stone walls. As the UK is not known for its warm weather, we have fitted the house with triple glassed windows so with 3 people and 2 dogs living in the small cottage, it was a good bet that we had locked in some C02 with little ventilation. I therefore immediately put the windows on lock so they were open just slightly (in the room where the aquarium was located). This certainly made a difference but I still struggled to reach a pH much over 8.00 and on less windy nights, the fresh air hardly made its way into the house with the pH dropping below 7.70. Also, leaving the windows like this is not a long term solution as it could become quite cold in the winter months.
The next step was to attempt to link the air intake from the skimmer to pull air in from the outside. As mentioned previously, my walls are 3ft thick so I didn't fancy drilling a hole through these walls! Luckily, the reef aquarium is upstairs so I took a different approach. I drilled a hole into the loft and installed a 15mm (approx 1/2") tube into the loft placing the inlet of the pipe in the eves that lets in air to aerate the loft. I thought this would be the silver bullet and I started to see my pH raise as high as 8.06 but I was still surprised to see it dropping below 7.9 at night even with my windows slightly open. These drops were on days where the wind was low, but even so, the pH only hit 8.06 on a good day so this still was not as high as I would like.
So I brought some Soda Lime granules and converted an old DI resin cartridge into a C02 scrubber and connected it to my skimmer. I use a Tunze 9012 skimmer which pulls in 400l/h of air. On May 12th, after a week running air from the loft, I installed the C02 scrubber still pulling air in from the loft and within just a few hours, my pH started to raise way beyond anything I had seen before. In the first 12 hours running the C02 scrubber the pH reached a high of 8.17. What impressed me further was that during that night, it dropped to just 8.10. Even more surprising, the following day, it continued to climb to 8.2 during the following day/night so I had to reduce my kalkwasser dosage from 500ml dosed throughout the night/early morning to 260ml just to ensure the pH did night rise too high!
As to be expected, the first day my pH climbed to over 8.1, my alkalinity and calcium started to drop so I started dosing daily. In the past, I rarely had to dose and my water changes were enough to keep these in check.
The next test I did was to have the C02 scrubber pulling air from the outside (via the loft) and closed the windows where the aquarium is located. That evening, I noticed an immediate drop in pH which continued through the night even with an increase kalkwaser dosing to attempt to prevent this. Even dosing 480ml of kalkwasser during the night did not prevent pH from dropping and I cannot evaporate any more water to increase the dosing further.
I have opened one of the windows slightly and am not seeing the lows during the night anymore.
Summary
- Kalkwasser dosing during the night struggled to prevent drops in pH at night
- Opening windows to allow air into the room is a must but this alone still did not raise my pH a great deal
- Routing the skimmer to pull in the air from the outside does make a difference but was still not enough to maintain a pH constantly above 8.1
- Using Soda Lime granules in a C02 scrubber not only boost the pH, it maintained the pH between 8.1 - 8.2 with the windows also open slightly
- Dosing kalkwasser once my pH was between 8.1 - 8.2 maintained and boosted the pH higher to the point I needed to reduce my dosing of kalkwasser
- Alkalinity and calcium needed to be dosed daily once pH reached 8.1 and above, something I have never had to do
- C02 scrubber and pulling air in from the outside will still not keep my pH above 8.1 at night so the Windows also need to left slightly open to achieve this
- I certainly have high levels of C02 in my house, something I need to address
I hope the above is useful to someone
