Auto dose limewater?

[Montrosereef]

Has anyone auto dosed limewater to keep Ph? I use a dosing pump to dose Aquavitro balance at night to keep ph at least 80, but this thing is expensive and i cant keep doing it. I also add limewater to my ATO but my water evaporation is low. I am thinking replacing Aquacitro Balance with a more concentrated limewater to dose automatically (20 minute intervals) at night. Has anyone done this to keep ph stable?

 

[Poseidon]

I used Kalk for years, with an ATO and never had an issue maintaining pH. I set up my ATO on a simple timer so that it would only run from midnight to 6am, meaning all the eval eater was replaced after lights out with a limewater solution.

It sounds like you may need to increase your evap buy adding a fan to the sump, OR maybe you can vent your skimmer air intake to the outside? I imagine in Houston the AC is on, and the windows closed up. (Means atmospheric CO2 would be higher in your house, then outside.)

 

[Montrosereef]

My ph stays around 79 without dosing. I read SPS like higher ph. I tried Buffer but it only caused ph and alk. to swing, which stress sps even more. I may try to auto dose limewater at night to see how well it works.

 

[SPSkeeper]

Here is a link to a thread I made, might help you out. Good luck!

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/do-yourself-diy/92310-do-yourself-tunze-auto-top-off.html

 

[mic209]

If you're having problems with low Ph you should look into running your skimmer air intake outside of your house, or look into a DIY Co2 reactor.

 

[ritter6788]

7.9 is fine IMO. I wouldn't add anything to attempt to push that number up.

What are you using to test pH?

 

[landlord]

I ran Auto topoff for 2 years fortified with kalkwasser. It was great at keeping the pH up. The day when the barrel switch stick open was the end of that SPS tank. 40 gallons of kalkwasser into a full SPS tank. pH was 11.4. All SPS dead, only favias and cyphastrea made it though along with a 6 year old clownfish pair and a diamond goby. About a dozen fish died.

It works but never forget to maintain the barrel switch.

I no longer use kalk and I try hard to ignore my pH because I keep CA and Alk where it needs to be. The corals are growing and that is what I like.

 

[impur]

If you're having problems with low Ph you should look into running your skimmer air intake outside of your house, or look into a DIY Co2 reactor.

I would go this route first. Though I dosed kalk in my ATO for several years and had no problems, the chance is still there. If something goes wrong and a bunch of the kalk solution gets dumped into your tank, its toast.

Just running my venturi airline to a window raised my pH .2. But my tank is not near a window, and having 25ft of tubing running across the floor gets to be a pain. I ended up buying some soda lime and making my own CO2 scrubber. Now my venturi pulls thru the soda lime, which absorbs all the CO2, and my pH has never been more stable. I get 8.6 during the day, 8.4 at night.

 

[Montrosereef]

Can I have more info on co2 scrubber? What is it and how to make it?

 

[impur]

It is just some media that absorbs CO2. CO2 is your biggest culprit in low pH, and since your house has the largest concentration of CO2 due to being a closed environment, your skimmer is basically just injecting it into the water.

The media is soda lime, i got it here. I just got the 10" cartridge filled with the media

Skimmer Media

Then I went to work on making a reactor that the skimmer venturi could connect to and pull air thru. I had this lying around

Barb fitting

Poked holes in the other endcap

Hooked up and running. My skimmate is usually much darker than that, it had overflowed while dialing it in with the scrubber attached