Help me understand PH....

FlyrodTodd

Amphipod
M.A.S.C Club Member
#1
Around the end of June, my Alk hit 6.2, so I got my Calc reactor up and running. Read up on the web and talked to my local shop about integrating it into the Apex system. The advice I got was to set the PH in the calc reactor at about 6.5....ok, set the CO2 to come on at anything above 6.56 and off at 6.5. Was also told to set the calc pump (drip into the tank) to turn on when the PH in the tank was over 8.0 and off at anything below that. Set that up, and by the 4th Alk was at 9.8...everything was looking good...but by the 10th Alk was off the chart, best I could figure was around 14.5! So now I'm out of range and reading that a high Alk can wipe out your inverts....so I dialed the drip volume back. I'm great about my water changes...every week, 10%. Then around the 11th, my PH in the tank started climbing and tonight I find my ph at 8.51....officially out of ideal range.

View attachment 20372 View attachment 20373

So should I be freaking out? everything looks happy....help me understand what drives PH up? Any educated advice would be most appreciated!
 

zombie

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
Stop your reactor until alk gets down to 11. Based on how long that takes, you can determine tank consumption levels. You already have these data point that gives the amount of alk you calcium reactor gives at full on. Post up how long it takes to get alk back to 11 and I can optimize an osc for your feed pump. You will want your feed pump code similar to this, but actual values I wont know until I can see tank consumption.

Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/005:00/010:00 Then ON
If pH < 8.0 Then OFF
If pH > 8.5 Then OFF
 

Aaron

Cyano
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
I wouldn't worry. I've found that more people in the hobby are starting to believe that pH doesn't really matter a lot. It can be an indication of a problem, but not a problem in itself.

My pH fluctuates between 7.8-8.5 and I don't see any ill effects in my SPS dominant tank which has been running for over 8 years. Your alkalinity levels are more important and a low pH can be an indication of bad Alk levels. As long as your Alk is dialed in, personally I wouldn't care if your pH a bit off.

Anyway, here's some helpful reading. By far the best article I've found on tank chemistry. I'm always referring to it.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/11/chemistry
 

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#5
This is not a tank PH question. Don't worry about tank PH as long as it is between 7.8 and 8.5 and doesn't swing more than .5 in a day. If you do have PH issues, they are 99.999999% likely due to ambient CO2 in the air in your home and little to do with anything in your tank.

As for the reactor. That is bad advice without knowing more info. What type of media are you melting? If it is ARM, that will melt quite well at 6.7. The man-made stuff, like from Aqua Medic will need probably 6.4. While you might be close with your mix, you are making too much. Turn the drip rate and bubbles down and make less. Rather than using a PH monitor to control your reactor, you can do it yourself - it is more reliable since hobby grade probes have high drift and failure rates. A rate or 40 drips and 10 bubbles is perfect... need more, then keep the ratio at 60/15 or 80/20, etc.

High alk is bad, even if it doesn't kill stuff. Since you have a reactor and you can dial it in and count on it, I might suggest that you shoot for NSW parameter levels with alk around 7 and calcium around 400-425 - this is best for calcification and color. The difference in NSW parameters and something like a Coralife/Kent mix is substantial, so if you are happy with your tank with alk at 10, or above, then you will be even more happy if you get them down and you are into true coral.
 

zombie

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#6
jda123;318960 said:
Rather than using a PH monitor to control your reactor, you can do it yourself - it is more reliable since hobby grade probes have high drift and failure rates.
Not true. You just need to get the right kind of pH probe to avoid that issue and regularly calibrate monthly. I use the double junction probe from brs and it drifts between 0.01 and 0.02 between calibration, which makes no appreciable difference on any apex based control. The probe has been in my tank for for almost a year.
 
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jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
A whole year? Wow. Let me know how it does after 3 or 4. At least in a reactor the worst thing that can happen is that you melt a ton of media or stop producing bubbles until you notice. I hope that nobody is pumping Hydrochloric Acid when PH gets high or Kalkwasser when PH gets low into the tank based on the reading of one of these probes.

They are junk. All of them. This is no indictment of any particular one since they are good for what they are advertised for... hobby-type of things. Most of them are the same probe just rebranded. After you have been in the hobby for long enough, you will likely have a box full of bad probes if you choose to keep monitoring PH. A real probe that people would use in a lab (not from Neptune Systems, Pinpoint, etc.) are at least $250 - probes from Orion get good reviews. The best ones are not made of glass and can be $1000 or more.
 

zombie

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
jda123;318971 said:
A whole year? Wow. Let me know how it does after 3 or 4. At least in a reactor the worst thing that can happen is that you melt a ton of media or stop producing bubbles until you notice. I hope that nobody is pumping Hydrochloric Acid when PH gets high or Kalkwasser when PH gets low into the tank based on the reading of one of these probes.

They are junk. All of them. This is no indictment of any particular one since they are good for what they are advertised for... hobby-type of things. Most of them are the same probe just rebranded. After you have been in the hobby for long enough, you will likely have a box full of bad probes if you choose to keep monitoring PH. A real probe that people would use in a lab (not from Neptune Systems, Pinpoint, etc.) are at least $250 - probes from Orion get good reviews. The best ones are not made of glass and can be $1000 or more.
Why in the world would you use a pH probe for 3 or 4 years? Recommended maintainance schedule is to calibrate monthly and replace when drift is more than 0.05 per month or when the probe has had 2 years of continued use.

Obviously nobody should be dumping HCl because pH reads high on a probe just like an ATO shouldnt be based off of a conductivity reading. Code needs to be written in a way that takes into account the fact that readings are not always 100% accurate.
 

FlyrodTodd

Amphipod
M.A.S.C Club Member
#9
Thank ya'll for the advice. Turned the reactor off...will take a reading tonight and we'll start tracking it on a nightly basis. REALLY appreciate the help!
 

deboy69

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#11
Just FYI. A reactor is only there to maintain a set level. A reactor isn't used to raise you alk or calc. You must dose to your preferred level and use your reactor to maintain that level.
 

zombie

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#12
deboy69;319385 said:
Just FYI. A reactor is only there to maintain a set level. A reactor isn't used to raise you alk or calc. You must dose to your preferred level and use your reactor to maintain that level.
It can easily do either. It just cant only raise alk without doing the same for calcium. Maintaining is the ideal scenario, but there will always be fiddling with it to get the level to stay maintained. Even corals just growing larger will change consumption needs 6 months later even if nothing new was added to the system.
 

deboy69

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#14
It can and that is where you will damage you system or kill off everything. A reactor should only be used to maintain your current levels. And yes it can only raise alk without calcium it's done this by controlling drip rate with bubble count.

Secondly your would be waisting time and media to raise your levels. Then turn around and have to adjust the reactor again to maintain your levels.


Op Google effluent alk levels that comes out of your reactor. I can't remember exactly off the top of my head but it's a good place to start. Now your system is different but it's a good read when I did my reactor
 
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zombie

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#16
I think I have enough data points now. Eliminating outliers and precipitation at high alk levels, it appears that your reactor is capable of producing about 1.4 dKh per day with a tank consumption around 0.7 dKh per day.

Start off with this code as a coarse tune and measure as often as you would like (weekly is fine) we can fine tune based on the alk measurements with this code for your water feed.

Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/005:00/005:00 Then ON
If pH < 8.0 Then OFF
If pH > 8.5 Then OFF
Defer 000:10 Then ON
Defer 000:10 Then OFF

Keep your CO2 solenoid code the same as it was earlier.
 
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