What do you do to maintain your reef’s pH?
How’s your coral growth?
Pretty good all things considered. My main toadstool has tripled in size since I got it back in November of last year. My Goldeneye chalice has probably doubled in size since acquiring at the same time. Overall, I haven't seen any detriment to growth. If anything, I wish I could grow them faster! :grinning-squinting-face:
Awesome. Have you considered a CO2 scrubber? There’s some data that shows that corals grow faster as you increase pH.
I can't say that I've ever considered one. I like to keep my setups pretty simple in terms of equipment. Interesting to know though regarding the CO2's effectiveness as far as growth is concerned!
my range is much wider than that lol
So about 7.9-8.3? Cool, do you use a CO2 scrubber?
Yeah, mine fluctuates more when the windows and doors are closed during the winter and summer months. When they’re all open to allow CO2 to escape, my pH is more stable. It’s been in the 90’s this week, so my usual 8.4-8.5 has gone down to around 8.3-8.4.
That’s impressive with a refugium. I’ve had to use a CO2 scrubber to get mine up to 8.5. And it only stays that high during the moderate seasons, when I can keep windows and doors open. I have a refugium, but it’s not large, and I’m still trying to hone in on how to get it to grow like crazy. It grows, but slowly.
no I don't I couldn't keep up with the media usage so I've never tried one... I have recently started using kalkwasser at night and it seems to help the low, and offset my consumption, but I don't really notice any issues with my ranging PH, well at least that i know of. only recent years have I even been observing it to know what it's doing, it's interesting to see on a graph and what it does throughout the day and night.
Yeah, I’ve found ever since I installed a CO2 scrubber that my pH has risen significantly, and my corals seem to be growing much faster than before. I have a lot of pets, so there’s a lot of CO2 in the house. And we have to keep the doors and windows closed during the winter and summer months, so it builds up. It helps a lot to have something to remove some of the excess CO2.
Have you tried a recirculating method for CO2 scrubber? I’ve found it reduces how often I have to change the media. I also use a reactor in between my skimmer and CO2 scrubber as a liquid catch to prevent the media from getting too wet.
no I try to limit the things I have to do, thats just one more step, cost and maintenance I don't want to add to my week, I'm thinking about ways I can do less lol
Yeah I agree.
Cool, I like that you keep it simple. I definitely can get overwhelmed by all the tech sometimes, so if it’s working for you, then that’s great! And 8.3 during the day is a great pH.
