tank aeration

[chad508]

is all i need to do to aerate my tank is add some air stones and wait? i am having a problem keeping my ph up at 8.2, at night it drops off to 7.85 and the day time it may reach 8.2 at the end of the light cycle. my alk is alittle high (14.5 dkh) due to kalk reactor. and calcium is a little low (275-300) even with my alk and calium in proper range i had a hard time kepping th ph up. i also run a refugium lit 24/7. i have tried it on reverse cycles with no change. i have read all of randys articles, and from what i gather ph is not that big of a problem, but if its something i can fix i would like to try.

 

[bertoni]

Usually, I just use water pumps and protein skimmers for aeration. The airstones tend to make a mess. Does the tank have a protein skimmer?

I would worry about the calcium level, too. A calcium chloride product like Turbo-Calcium should work well in this situation.

 

[chad508]

yes i am using an asm g2. i also use turbo calcium to raise the calcium, but it just got this low in th last few days. the kalk reactor is just not keeping up anymore. so i may need to start making randys 1st part of the two part solution. i currently use the alk portion to buffer the alk.

 

[steve the plumb]

Kalk is the only thing that keeps my ph at 8.2-8.3 without it I fall to 7.98.You can try to use a pump,take the air from outside your house this should work better.I never leave my windows open thus low ph.Only thing keeping it high is the kalk.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Did you try doing an indoor aerating test? If the pH didn't rise doing that, then more aeration with normal home air will probably not raise pH, and might even lower it.

Low pH: Causes and Cures
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rhf/index.htm

 

[Horace]

Strange that you are using Kalk and still have low PH. My PH runs about 8.4-8.5 when running it which is on the high side. It seems strange also that your alk is so high while your calcium is so low. That is a serious balance issue there. I am dosing kalk right now as top off water in my sps tank and it has been 7.7dkh and 420 Ca for the past 2 weeks.

 

[DrBDC]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6956165#post6956165 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by chad508
i also use turbo calcium to raise the calcium, but it just got this low in th last few days. the kalk reactor is just not keeping up anymore. so i may need to start making randys 1st part of the two part solution. i currently use the alk portion to buffer the alk.

The kalk reactor is going to add BOTH Ca and alk in a balanced amount to match your calcification. The reason the ca is low is that you have been dosing just the alk portion without the equal amount of the ca portion. If your dKh drops by X amount and you have to add part 2, always add the same amount of part 1 or it will slowly lower your ca in relation to the alk. On a day by day basis you may think the ca is ok still but if you needed alk, you need the ca too. First bump the ca up to your target range and then maintain using the kalk and both parts again for what the kalk doesn't keep up with.

 

[DrBDC]

That is unless you did a water change with a salt mix that is out of proportion and it's the easiest IMO to match it to the tank before the water change. It only requires the first mix out of a new bucket to determine what tweaks are required.

 

[chad508]

i may have found a easy soulution. i switched out my dosing pump for a larger one. the old one only dosed a max of 14 gpd. the new doses 60gpd. i found at the lower gpd it did not dose enough at a time to make a difference. now with it dose more at one time it seems to keep the ph stead throught the day. i am running it on an opposite cycle of the lights to keep the high end to no more than 8.3. this morning before the lights came on the ph was 8.17. so i would say that is as good as i can get it. i did also add a few airstones to the sump. maybe with the two experiments i found the solution. i also agree my alk to calcium ballance is way out due to only adding the part 2 to the tank. the reason i did this was be cause i used oceanic salt and everyone knows how low the alk is and how high the calcium is. i soon will be changing over to instant ocean salt and hope to correct the problem

thanks for all th advice.