neuroslicer
Old School Reefer
I bought George's Sander 50 mg ozonator a couple weeks ago, but because I didn't have an ORP monitor, I limited the exposure to 1 - 2 hours per day, with not a lot of results in increased water clarity. Being concerned about O3 overexposure, I found an ORP controller which is also a pH controller pretty cheap ($150) at bestlabdeals.com. It's a Milwaukee SMS 125, and it includes both pH and ORP electrodes. According to the meter, with only a couple hours of ozone per day my ORP was still less than 200mV, so now using the controller I've got it up to 325 mV with very nice results (increased water clarity).
If you've got a CO2 injection system, this can be controlled by the SMS 125 as well, but there's a bit of a problem, at least at first glance. Milwaukee has another pH controller (that doesn't do ORP) with a set point range from 5.5 to 9.5, but this ORP/pH controller that I bought has a pH set point of 4 to 8, a little too acidic for reef use (it actually maxes out at about 8.1). However, if you calibrate the pH meter to read 6.8 with a pH 7.0 calibration solution, then instead of regulating the pH of your tank to equal 8.1, it's actually 8.3.
You've just got to remember that when you read the pH meter, it's calibrated 0.2 units too low.
I've been using the original ESV B-Ionic supplements 1 and 2 to maintain Ca and Alk, but because I've got a long light cycle my pH gets up to about 8.5 by 5 pm (from a morning low of 8.2). So I'm going to try switching to the low pH Alk supplement by ESV (uses bicarbonate instead of carbonate) and see if that helps. But for now my coral are enjoying a daily shot of seltzer water at tea time to bump pH back down a bit.
More later.
Jay
If you've got a CO2 injection system, this can be controlled by the SMS 125 as well, but there's a bit of a problem, at least at first glance. Milwaukee has another pH controller (that doesn't do ORP) with a set point range from 5.5 to 9.5, but this ORP/pH controller that I bought has a pH set point of 4 to 8, a little too acidic for reef use (it actually maxes out at about 8.1). However, if you calibrate the pH meter to read 6.8 with a pH 7.0 calibration solution, then instead of regulating the pH of your tank to equal 8.1, it's actually 8.3.
You've just got to remember that when you read the pH meter, it's calibrated 0.2 units too low.
I've been using the original ESV B-Ionic supplements 1 and 2 to maintain Ca and Alk, but because I've got a long light cycle my pH gets up to about 8.5 by 5 pm (from a morning low of 8.2). So I'm going to try switching to the low pH Alk supplement by ESV (uses bicarbonate instead of carbonate) and see if that helps. But for now my coral are enjoying a daily shot of seltzer water at tea time to bump pH back down a bit.
More later.
Jay
