pH and Ca problems with a twist.

[Docdunit]

Hello Randy, my name is Doc and I am having some problems with my PH and Ca. I am going to try to give you all the info you might need to evaluate my problem and direct me in the right direction. 1st, I have a 260 reef that is about 6 years old. I have added a lot of pic’s for your benefit and I hope they help.

[IMG] http://mytankpics.com/tanks/albums/u...l_100_1077.JPG[/IMG]


Two months ago I retired and started to really get into aquaria, I have read more in the pass two months; anyway this is when I started to notice some problems. At the same time, I stop using part A and B and was adding a CR that is off (advise from a friend who knows more than me and thought it best we get the pH and Ca in check before going any further). On his advise I have added a night time drip of Kalk, (about 16 hours of drip that is also replenishing my evaporated water daily) and a refugium with a standard 65 watt coil light bulb that is on 24/7. I had also just switched salts; I was using Tropic Marin but switched to Oceanic. Which now I know to be high in Ca. I am going to change again to Instant Ocean this week.


I guess the best place to start is the source; I am on well water and I use RO water (I just read your articles on RO/DI and guess I will be spending more money to add DI), but as you will see my pH is well above the project 7.0 of typical made water, even at 80 degrees. Anyway inside my 50gal RO barrel is a heater (set at 80) and a bubble stone (to keep some water movement).

Now lets get to pH readings all taken with a pinpoint pH monitor starting at the source:
From the tap; 9.35
From the barrel; a couple days old 8.97
Effluent from RO; 10.7
Is it just me or are these weird readings?
Note; I am going to change all filters and membrane this week; it appears to be dripping to fast. What ever that is worth. After reading your article, it should be slowing down.
Anyway, as you can see I have been testing my water parameters regularly. Lets finish with pH before touching on Ca. Thinking that excess CO2 might be the problem, the first thing I did was add a 14� air stone to my sump. I hope you can visualize this or see it in the pic’s, when I built my refuge I left 2� on the backside for all of the rest of my return water to pass through before returning to the tank. It is here that I placed the air stone so almost all of my water is getting hit by this air stone. FWIT, I also plumed my effluent from my CR into my skimmer, which is still off.



Now the test, I have taken a cup of tank water and added an air stone and put it outside for an hour. Tank water pH at the time it was taken was 8.01. After one hour outside it was 8.20. Then I repeated the test inside, the pH of the tank at the time was 7.99, after one hour of aeration inside it was 7.79. According to your article this would conclude that CO2 is high in the house, if I read it correctly. The windows and doors have been closed for the past 2 days. However, the weather here has been beautiful and doors and windows have been open 24/7 for the last month, so something is wrong, my readings go back to Apr 22nd, when the doors and windows were open 24/7. So I am baffled. It doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t know what it might be.

Ca, on the advice from my friend, I have tried to raise the Sal to 1.027 so there has been some more Ca added other then just from the Kalk drip, but nothing for the past week or so. And as you can see my Ca stays high. There has been no visible precipitation of Ca or Sal but even the Sal is slowly dropping.

Randy, I hope you will help me and get me where I need to be or just happy with what I have. Thanks in advance, Doc.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

[B]Is it just me or are these weird readings?[?B]

That is similar to mine, although I am not sure if it is real or not. pH meters and kits cannot accurately read the pH of highly purified water for a variety of reasons. So don't worry about it.

I guess the best place to start is the source

FWIW, the best place to start is with the question/problem, that way I can decide what is important and what not as I look through the other info.

According to your article this would conclude that CO2 is high in the house, if I read it correctly.

Absolutely.


I can't explain what happened in the past when the windows were open without a test then. Perhaps the air was fine then, but the tank still had excess CO2 in it due to inadequate aeration.

Ca, on the advice from my friend, I have tried to raise the Sal to 1.027 so there has been some more Ca added other then just from the Kalk drip, but nothing for the past week or so. And as you can see my Ca stays high. There has been no visible precipitation of Ca or Sal but even the Sal is slowly dropping.


Did you always add equal parts of the B-ionic? If so, then the calcium movement is likely test kit noise (unless you did water changes during this time), because the alkalinity is not varying enough to permit calcium to move the way it has without independent additions of calcium or alkalinity.

[Docdunit]

Sorry, I guess I did leave out some important info. Before I added the refuge, I did weekly water changes and added equal parts of B-ionic daily. The water change wasn't much but I did it every week. I would take out 15 gals and add 20. I added the CR first and was dialing it in when I was advised to shut it down and start adding the kalk to increase the pH. I have changed my Ca test kit twice and still come up with high reading. When I was raising the Sal last week, I was adding cup fulls of salt slowly to my sump which of course added Ca too. But it is still high. With everything in my tank I figured it would be eating up the Ca. So the answer over CO2 is there is too much in the house, which it lowing my pH, correct. I guess the wife and kids have to stop breathing!

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So the answer over CO2 is there is too much in the house, which it lowing my pH, correct.

Yes.

I guess the wife and kids have to stop breathing!




Limewater might be an easier answer.

The water changes may have been keeping the calcium high.

[Docdunit]

I am dripping kalk at night for about 16 hrs.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Increasing the limewater with fans (to increase evaporation) or adding more lime to the limewater (if its not already saturated) would help.

Beyond that, more aeration is the best option.

[Docdunit]

pH of my limewater is 12.3 to 12.5. I've never heard of" increasing limewater with fans" what is this? And if the house is high in CO2 will aeration even help?

[Docdunit]

Does all this mean that I might as well get use to low pH reading. Do I even need a CR if I am using limewater?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

pH of my limewater is 12.3 to 12.5. I've never heard of" increasing limewater with fans" what is this?

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear enough. You increase the evaporation from the main tank so you can add more limewater each day to replace the evaporated water.


pH of my limewater is 12.3 to 12.5. I've never heard of" increasing limewater with fans" what is this?

Sure it helps. Whether it is enough of a solution depends on how bad the CO2 problem is.

Do I even need a CR if I am using limewater?

That depends on the tank. Limewater is all that I use, but if you have a lot of fast calcifying corals, you may need more.

[Docdunit]

Randy thanks for your help. Do you know of anyway of testing home CO2 levels. It's an all electric house so there is no gas or anything like that. Any finally instructions or advice?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You can buy a CO2 meter, as described in this article, but they are very expensive.

Indoor CO2 Problems
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2002/short.htm

An easier alternative is to do the aeration tests described in this article:

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