Some people might wonder why I run an auto Alk tester like my Alkatronic. It's not because I'm lazy, although I'd like to be.
It's for vacations! All of my tank issues including my big acro crash years ago happened while I was on vacation. I never really figured out why, nutrient swing, Alk swing... But something ticked off my acros enough to start dying!
We just took our second trip since running the Alkatronic and the first in the middle of winter. Many of you know the relationship between CO2/pH/Alk, but have never seen it actually tracked. Since it's winter our house has been all closed up and with 4 humans sucking oxygen and breathing out CO2, my tank pH has been running very low (approx. 7.55-8.0).
Now for the graph... So we left on 12/22 and you can see prior to that my pH was low, but very consistent. My Alk was very consistent too, running around 7.5. As you can see, by the evening of 12/22 CO2 levels started dropping and pH went up and up and up until the new consistent pH (approx. 7.75-8.15). Not shown in this Apex graph is my Alk. During this same period, my Alk started dropping. I went from dosing around 135ml/day to 165ml/day.
I caught the drop with my Alkatronic and was able to keep it within range by adjusting my dosers. When we returned about 4 days later, pH/Alk went back to where it was before. It really amazed me at how fast Alk can swing in just a few days when no one is in the house! I saw something similar a month ago when we were gone for about 10 days. In both situations I was able to adjust Alk remotely to the new pH levels. Once you make the initial adjustments (takes a couple days), pH/Alk stay consistent till you get back home.
