How do YOU bring up pH in your nano tank?

[DomiKasReef]

I’m wondering what people with nano tanks/AIOs do to bring up their tank’s pH?!

With the nano size equipment, nothing I try short of opening up my windows and dosing kalk seems to work.

With winter coming up, I’m trying to solve my issues and curious what others do too.

Me personally, I’m currently running a CO2 scrubber on my little eshopps nano skimmer and it does nothing.

What do you for pH problems?

 

[jrill]

I don't check not chase pH. Just watch ALK and you'll sleep better at night.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I have a little simple RFA and ricordea nano. I don't even test Alk. I just change water about a month and check salinity during the change.

 

[Robg139]

Yea I as long as I keep my alk stable I’m fine. Have a fluval evo 13.5. I dose a little kalk in the ato to bring up the ph and then dose esv 2 part daily to keep my alk and ca stable.

 

[ZachR32]

I had a ton of issues with pH dropping low overnight in my old apartment. Tank is a 14 gallon IM. PH would hit 7.6 at night and range to 8.3 during the day. I calibrated the pH probe, replaced it, and double checked with a test kit. Issue was aeration with the way the apartment was laid out. Now that we’ve moved, I have a window near the tank I keep open. PH is more stable now, bottoms out at 7.8. My big clownfish use up a lot of oxygen so I think my dissolved oxygen count is too low still. Makes it impossible to keep acropora in that tank.
I’ve set up a second nano next to it that currently houses no fish and the pH sits about 8.0-8.15.

 

[Tihsho]

You can also setup an algae reactor with a small reactor chamber and some LED grow lights. Running these opposite from your display light schedule will assist with keeping the pH constant.

 

[DomiKasReef]

My Alk swings around 7 - 8.5 in a week which I can keep up with, for the most part, with water changes, but can’t do anything for my pH with the house closed up. The little pump on the eshopps just doesn’t pull enough for the co2 scrubber to work well it seems and no way to run a line outside because it’ll be way too long.

I made my little chamber in the back a refuge with some chaeto on opposite lighting cycle, which does help in stability at night too.

I’m not interested in dosing buffer for pH either so It’s pretty much find out what others have done/do or it’s a lost cause.

 

[kireek]

I dose Calcium,Alkalinity and Magnesium. I have the window next to my tank completely open.On cold days I can only leave it open a crack though.A nifty option is explained here ;

A Simple Fix for Low PH

When living in the warm weather or cold weather climates, we really do not have the chance to open our windows that often. This leads to a build up of CO2 in the air inside the house and results in a drop in pH. When our pH drops down to levels...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[DomiKasReef]

@kireek that link is a neat option. And the C02 Scrubber write up HERE mentioned in that post is a good alternative too. I'm not sure if scrubbers need major air flow to even work or not though. All I've see are on larger tanks.