[Marcus Watts]

Last week I set up the calcium reactor, ph probes/Co2 controler etc. Now I've got the interesting info on the screen of the daily fluctuation in Ph to look at. Over the last week its been a case of tweaking the settings on the reactor and it seems the down side of running a Co2 reactor is a drop in tank Ph due to the lower ph effluent dripping into the sump.

Before the reactor went in my ph was Ave 8.24.... I have masses of turbulence,high flow & nice high alkalinity that help keep ph levels up but tank levels were 7.98 at lowest, 8.09 at end of the lighting period after 5 days with the calcium reactor running. Ph Buffers are not the answer as my dkh is fine and they all bump it up way too high. (there is a fair bit of info advising a kalc stirrer to push up and even out ph! even though I was advised to switch from kalc to a reactor???....there seems to be recommendations to run both)

I looked into it and excess Co2 may have been a contributer so I added an airstone to the sump, right under the reactor outlet, so that more air was bubbled into the returning water. 3 days later I have slightly improved the Ph to 7.98 low and 8.19 high.

Why dont we bubble pure O2 through a chamber in a similar way to bubbling Co2? Surely this would be so beneficial to the tank, and combined with ozone would be even better

[TrevC]

Marcus you need to read the following topic...

http://www.internati...?showtopic=5383

It's a sort of de-gas/re-gas.

It will up the pH of your efflient to around 7.5 from 6.5!

You should see a marked increase in tank pH stability

[chriss]

Marcus Watts, on May 31 2010, 11:02 AM, said:

Last week I set up the calcium reactor, ph probes/Co2 controler etc. Now I've got the interesting info on the screen of the daily fluctuation in Ph to look at. Over the last week its been a case of tweaking the settings on the reactor and it seems the down side of running a Co2 reactor is a drop in tank Ph due to the lower ph effluent dripping into the sump.

Before the reactor went in my ph was Ave 8.24.... I have masses of turbulence,high flow & nice high alkalinity that help keep ph levels up but tank levels were 7.98 at lowest, 8.09 at end of the lighting period after 5 days with the calcium reactor running. Ph Buffers are not the answer as my dkh is fine and they all bump it up way too high. (there is a fair bit of info advising a kalc stirrer to push up and even out ph! even though I was advised to switch from kalc to a reactor???....there seems to be recommendations to run both)

I looked into it and excess Co2 may have been a contributer so I added an airstone to the sump, right under the reactor outlet, so that more air was bubbled into the returning water. 3 days later I have slightly improved the Ph to 7.98 low and 8.19 high.

Why dont we bubble pure O2 through a chamber in a similar way to bubbling Co2? Surely this would be so beneficial to the tank, and combined with ozone would be even better

effluent ph 7.9 to 8.01

[Marcus Watts]

excelent, thanks guys. That will sort it.