Placing Plants Near Aquarium for Higher pH

[Memphis]

So I have minor issues with low pH. Nothing crazy as I fluctuate between a low of ~7.8 and a high of 8.1 (tracked via apex), so I probably shouldn't even worry about it. I just don't have the growth I think I should have and that's the only parameter that I think I can blame. Other note worthy params:

Alk - 10dKH (stable at this number using 2 part dosing and testing regularly with Hanna checker)

Calcium - 435 ppm (same stability as Alk ^^)

Nitrate - 1 ppm

Phosphate - 0.05 ppm (perhaps not enough?)

Magnesium - 1400

It's a 120 gallon tank (48*24*24), lit by two AI Hydra 52 HDs, with a 20 gallon sump (should upgrade this, I know). I recently hooked up a CO2 scrubber to my protein skimmer over the last few days and haven't noticed a huge jump in avg pH. Maybe .05, but that's about it. While researching this, I found an old post on a forum from way back in 2010 where someone was also struggling with pH. This person bought a peace lily and put it in the same room as their tank. They make it sound like they didn't make any changes and suddenly after adding the plant, pH stabilized closer to the desirable 8.3 number. I find it rather hard to believe, but figured it would be a fairly cheap and easy thing to try. Does anyone else have any experience with this or think it would actually work?

 

[Crabs McJones]

So I have minor issues with low pH. Nothing crazy as I fluctuate between a low of ~7.8 and a high of 8.1 (tracked via apex), so I probably shouldn't even worry about it. I just don't have the growth I think I should have and that's the only parameter that I think I can blame. Other note worthy params:

Alk - 10dKH (stable at this number using 2 part dosing and testing regularly with Hanna checker)

Calcium - 435 ppm (same stability as Alk ^^)

Nitrate - 1 ppm

Phosphate - 0.05 ppm (perhaps not enough?)

Magnesium - 1400

It's a 120 gallon tank (48*24*24), lit by two AI Hydra 52 HDs, with a 20 gallon sump (should upgrade this, I know). I recently hooked up a CO2 scrubber to my protein skimmer over the last few days and haven't noticed a huge jump in avg pH. Maybe .05, but that's about it. While researching this, I found an old post on a forum from way back in 2010 where someone was also struggling with pH. This person bought a peace lily and put it in the same room as their tank. They make it sound like they didn't make any changes and suddenly after adding the plant, pH stabilized closer to the desirable 8.3 number. I find it rather hard to believe, but figured it would be a fairly cheap and easy thing to try. Does anyone else have any experience with this or think it would actually work?

Might be worth a shot, worse case senario you have a nice plant in the room to compliment the tank

 

[CoralWealth]

interesting

 

[Tyrone]

I think I might give this a shot.

 

[iamsamuel93]

Correct me if I'm wrong but, in theory, plants takes up oxygen in the room at night. So if you were to put it in the same room, it will be absorbing oxygen at night which will reduce the pH of your tank. If it's in the day, I see no issue. Any advice

 

[Memphis]

Correct me if I'm wrong but, in theory, plants takes up oxygen in the room at night. So if you were to put it in the same room, it will be absorbing oxygen at night which will reduce the pH of your tank. If it's in the day, I see no issue. Any advice

Now that you mention it, I do believe that's correct http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/sleeping-with-plants/. However, I just added a couple medium sized plants near the general vicinity of my tank last night and there was a pretty noticable difference (see attached chart). I started the co2 scrubber on 12/16 with no huge difference, so I think the plants did actually make a difference!

 

[Memphis]

I'll post another pic later today so we can see what the increase is in the daytime hours! Then I might also disconnect the co2 scrubber for a day just to rule out that it wasn't just that happening to kick in around the same time.

 

[AdamNC]

interesting and following

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I think a few hundred ml of kalkwasser/saturated lime in the ato would be simpler.

Fwiw, you’d have to really get those plants growing to get the co2 down in the house. Ie , Light of the correct spectrum and intensity plus good airflow.

 

[ReeferCub]

Try Kalkwasser dosing. Plants 'might' help. But Kalk sure will.

 

[Memphis]

Try Kalkwasser dosing. Plants 'might' help. But Kalk sure will.

I initially started out with kalk in my top off water and may go back to that. Are there any issues or concerns with dosing kalk along with the 2 part I'm already dosing? I already have them split so I dose calcium during the day and alk at night (in an attempt to keep the pH higher). I may try setting up another doser to dose a pretty diluted kalk solution at night to see if that helps.

 

[ReeferCub]

In a tank with less demand of alk, kalk can completely replace daily two part dosing. If you have a big tank filled with SPS, then sure only kalk will not be able to keep up with alk demand.
Small tank or tanks with only few sps frags or small colonies can be kept with kalk only. One benefit of doing so is higher pH.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Kalk is actually kinda low powered and you need a lot to keep the cal and alk up.
A small amount will boost the ph and not effect the cal and alk much.

Check out the dosing calculator.

 

[Memphis]

Thanks for the replies! I went from kalk in my ato to dosing 2 part. No real good reason why, other than Black Friday deals from BRS got me and I decided I wanted to be fancy. When I was doing just kalk in my ato, I didn't have the Apex yet and wasn't monitoring pH very closely. I did test with a handheld digital pH meter once a week or so and it was definitely higher (as long as my cheap meter was indeed accurate). I just started adding a little kalk back into my ato now and will see how it goes. I can't definitively say the plants really made a difference as you can see in the chart (ignore the spike, that was just me calibrating the probe to be sure). They certainly don't appear to make much of a difference during the day. I have too many other factors that could definitely cause a change. For instance, the first night I put the plants in, the kids weren't home (they generally hang around the tank area, spewing their CO2 all over every time they breath lol). I also run a wood stove in the winter time and wasn't that night either, but am now. We'll see if the kalk bumps it up a bit at all as my ato kicks in. At any rate, it's not like my tank is hurting. Everything is fat, healthy, and growing, so I'm not going to worry about chasing that 8.3 number too much. Just want everything to grow faster! Should be careful what I wish for though. Merry Christmas!

 

[Memphis]

I'll still pull the CO2 scrubber and remove the plants for a day or two over the next week or so to see if there's a major change with either. I'm not going to waste money on soda lime running the CO2 scrubber if it doesn't make much of a difference

 

[Memphis]

I think I might give this a shot.

Let me know if you have different results and what plant (s) you used

 

[ca1ore]

Plants produce CO2 at night, presumably when your tank is at it's lowest pH, as part of the respiration process, so cannot see how this would help. Even in the daytime, I'd imagine the number of plants you'd need to materially reduce the amount of CO2 would be impractical.

 

[Gareth elliott]

I keep in the same room: my reef, 2 terrariums(3’x4’ total volume), fw planted (55g) with aquaponic nutrient reduction.

So orchids, a 2 foot ficus, a 6-7 feet of pothos vines and assorted other plants. i can tell you theres less atmospheric formaldehyde, than the rest of the house. I do not see an effect on ph on either fw or sw tank.
Both have a noticeable swing for photo period.

Plants unlike macro algae require a “sleep” period to thrive. If you lit a terrestrial plant without one, they wither.
Ph swing control would be easier with an refugium lit opposite of your display tank. Im also not sure its needed. Diurnal Ph swing is quite variable on most reefs some +/- 1.0. More bio activity more swing. Open ocean is where you see an almost constant ph.