Very low PH

[KenO]

I haven’t tried it, but there is an interesting forum post that talks about how to increase the life of your CO2 media by keeping it moist. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-best-way-to-implement-a-co2-scrubber.330806/

I just picked up a new skimmer and connected it to outside air. Waiting to see the effect. I did Randy’s tests with the air stone with inside and outside air and the pH increased. My house is very air tight. We used spray foam as our insulation. The hvac guy we used talked me out of a whole house ventilation system. Instead he put fresh air intakes on the hvac system. Complete waste of money. If the system is not running, it’s not pulling in air. When it does run, my CO2 levels in the house don’t change much. It may be bringing in air, but there isn’t anything pulling the stale air out. I’m waiting on 2 quotes to install either an HRV or ERV system. With the windows open my CO2 meter reads around 400ppm. I measured the outside air and it’s 395ppm. With the windows closed it will climb to just about 800ppm.

 

[Jen_h]

Thanks for the info! I hooked up my co2 scrubber on Friday. It has increased to a reasonable range but unfortunately won’t increase more than 7.9 [emoji1744]‍[emoji3601]

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I haven’t tried it, but there is an interesting forum post that talks about how to increase the life of your CO2 media by keeping it moist. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-best-way-to-implement-a-co2-scrubber.330806/

I just picked up a new skimmer and connected it to outside air. Waiting to see the effect. I did Randy’s tests with the air stone with inside and outside air and the pH increased. My house is very air tight. We used spray foam as our insulation. The hvac guy we used talked me out of a whole house ventilation system. Instead he put fresh air intakes on the hvac system. Complete waste of money. If the system is not running, it’s not pulling in air. When it does run, my CO2 levels in the house don’t change much. It may be bringing in air, but there isn’t anything pulling the stale air out. I’m waiting on 2 quotes to install either an HRV or ERV system. With the windows open my CO2 meter reads around 400ppm. I measured the outside air and it’s 395ppm. With the windows closed it will climb to just about 800ppm.

Moisture does help. I totally dry media, only the outermost layer of molecules can react, but when moist, a very thin surface film of water can allow some dissolution of material and access to unreacted molecules just below the surface.

 

[Shredded]

I see that this thread is a week or so old and maybe I should have started a separate thread. If so, let me know and I will start a new one. I had a similar issue. My pH before December averaged 8 at night and 8.15 to 8.2 during the day. Since end of November it has dropped to 7.78 at night and 7.92 during the day. I have a fully enclosed tank room. I was concerned but tried to listen to everyone about not chasing numbers. Still coral growth had stopped or at least slowed in some corals but my main concern was a couple of weeks ago I had an alkalinity swing. Not sure what happened but went from 8.5 to 12.5. I lost 2 colonies and damaged a few from minor to major damage. They are holding there own but my main concern is they can't recover because the pH is too low to allow for growth. I have no idea if that is true but it sounds logical. So yesterday I took an old RO/DI setup and stripped it down to 3 canisters, filled the 3 cartridges with soda lime, (total cost 8.00) and plumbed it thru the wall to my RE skimmer. Today my pH hit 8.6. Checking the Soda Lime so far shows no purple coloration on any of the cartridges so this may be cost effective. So, to get to my question, is 8.6 to high? Have a caused a new problem? Considering turning my new CO2 scrubber on and off using my controller based on the pH. Little help please?
Thanks in advance!
Jeff

 

[Shredded]

Sorry forgot.
Tank is 1.5 years old.
Probes are freshly calibrated.
Moderate fish load.
Temp 77.0
Conductivity 53.7 (specific gravity approx 1.026)
Alk 9.5
Ca 445
Mg 1363
pH 8.6
Phosphorus 28 ppb
Nitrate 5.0 ppm