Whats your take on PH

[Lasse]

For me - the best way to have a better pH was to change my 3 year old probe to a new - it took 15 minutes (including calibration) to rise the low value from 7.8 to 8,1 :p

Just point out the risk of measurement fault

Sincerely Lasse

 

[LC8Sumi]

@Lasse, Thank You very much for your detailed responses. It's evident that you know a lot more about the topic than I do & there is clearly a lot more for me to learn!

 

[Yates273]

Well I just finished running 3/4 pvc outside and hooked up to protein skimmer. We will see how it goes. Don’t mind the ugly silicone job. That is temp until it gets warmer then I will put a vinyl spigot mount with trim. As far as inlet I glued a plastic mesh screen to elbow. I here the skimmer sucking air from outside. Fingers crossed

 

[Quietman]

So far hasn't been a concern. I run 7.70 to 8.30 seasonally it appears. Oddly, I have lower in summer than I do in winter when house is more closed up. Maybe it's all my wife's houseplants. I separate health from optimal growth. I don't need or really want super fast growth rates. Plus it's easy this way.

 

[Lasse]

Maybe it's all my wife's houseplants.

May I ask if she have many of them and if they are "fast grower"?

It is very interesting comments because I was for many years responsible for the ventilation of a rather large indoor "rainforrest" at Universeum, Gothenburg, From around September to early May - we run the air in a recirculating mode during daytime in order to save heating costs and to use the CO2 from our guests to our plants and trees. It works very well for the years I was there - trees and plants use the CO2,,,hence clean the air from CO2 and get some oxygen out in the air. I know it works

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Scorpius]

7.78 ph was when I ran the skimmer two days with inside air. Reading taken during the day. 8.04 ph with outside air ran to the skimmer. Reading taken during the day.

My house is one sealed up building I guess.

 

[Yates273]

Success! Ph is now 8.2 at 8 am

 

[Reef'in Rob]

So I have struggled with pH on my Acro tank for a while. There is an external air supply from outside my home via airstone, skimmer and Ive tried various buffers to keep it up. I've run my refugium lighting both opposite and with my lighting schedule and it always falls to the same range below. Do you guys think I should do anything or just leave it be? This is a SPS dominant tank, I do see good growth and everything seems very healthy on the SPS side. I did have an LPS in there that developed RTN but it quickly stopped and regenerated a few weeks ago but other than that its seemed quite health.
Parameters:
Temp 78.6
Magnesium 1440
Calcium 435
Alk 11.5
Nitrates 5

 

[mcarroll]

If you do not live in on of the mega city´s of the world - outside air can be a alternative - but in cities - maybe not a good idea - either no good idea if your home is located near commercial growing fields of the "dirty dozen".

But I think that I just read a game changer about which parameter is most important according to calcification in at least some stony corals

@ksed tip me about a study publicized in 2014 that - IMO - can be a game changer how we treat our tanks in order to get a high calcification rate. It can also give some explanations why over sized skimmers and aquarium with a very low organic load can give high calcification rates.

It can also explain why my tank seems to go very good even if I dose all my alkalinity during night.

It can also explain some good experiences with oxydators and/or light reversed refugium.

It can also explain why some things we do in order to get a high pH (read low CO2)

It also strengthen my believe that the method using recirculated skimmer air (through a carbon scrubber) is a real cerebral hemorrhage - it will give a high pH but no exchange of other gases like O2 canf NH3 .

In their experiment - they did not see any differences between light and dark calcification if some parameters was right.

To really understand this - we must understand that O2 and CO2 is two different sides of the same coin according to biological life and aeration in a reef aquarium. And it is only the amount of CO2 that affect the pH - not the amount of O2.

During night time - nearly all life in the aquarium use 02 and produce CO2. - this will give a lower O2 and a higher CO2 pressure in the water. The O2 level will be below equilibrium of air/water and the CO2 will be higher than the equilibrium. Heavy aeration (by a skimmer, gas exchanges tower or other types of aeration of water) will rise the O2 level and lower the CO2 level (hence rise the pH). During the photo period all animals still consume O2 and leave CO2 as a waste but all primary producers (algae, some sponges and the zooxanthellae in some animals) will use CO2 and produce O2 with help of light. when consumption of CO2 is higher than the production of CO2 - pH rise and so do O2. Heavy aeration by a skimmer, gas exchanges tower or other types of aeration of water will rise the CO2 (hence stabilize the pH) and decrease the O2.


With this in my head this quote from the article rise new ideas and thinking



The article

Sincerely Lasse

Somehow this thread ended up in front of me today.

The article is (still) very interesting, and I'm a little surprised that I don't see mention of this more often (than never). It's not like pH chasing has gotten any less popular!!

I'd like to see the study repeated but with another control group that were kept in replete nutrient conditions.

In the study N&P are both at almost-undetectable levels. This has obvious ramifications on the daylight parts of the study.

I don't think that corals photosynthesizing in replete conditions would make data like this.

But that does not make the article's main point about O2 and calcification any less interesting.