Kalk slurry aeration

[mikst]

By the time you've sorted this out, pH shouldn't be an issue. This tank is about 4 years now. Thanks dry rock.

Fair enough, stop quibbling over detail with myself and just use what I've got is what I hear.

 

[Garf]

Fair enough, stop quibbling over detail with myself and just use what I've got is what I hear.

For what it's worth I've been playing with lowering pH in an effort to see where the threshold is that negatively effects alkalinity consumption. I got it down to pH 8.15 around the clock and didn't notice anything negative. In fact, everything looked rather good. Yesterday I increased pH to 8.3 again to see if consumption increases and I just missed the subtle decrease in consumption due to lower pH. Cheers

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thank you for answering, but, my understanding was from a materials standpoint, NaOH is more potent and would be more effective at scrubbing co2.

Also, when I said above something about taking the caco3 and putting it in a calcium reactor I was not intending to actually do that as I don't want to run a calcium react and I'm not sure what I would do with all the calcium carbonate. Sprinkle in the sump in the crypt? I'd hate to waste.

I have a water filter housing I was intending to use for this scrubber purpose. Just curious if it's big enough to perhaps not have to fill weekly for a 60 gallons of water system.

Both sodium hydroxide and calcium hydroxide work, despite the mechanism being slightly different. Which is best may depend on lots of factors such as the concentration, flow rate, contact time and degree, and CO2 level in the air.

 

[mikst]

For what it's worth I've been playing with lowering pH in an effort to see where the threshold is that negatively effects alkalinity consumption. I got it down to pH 8.15 around the clock and didn't notice anything negative. In fact, everything looked rather good. Yesterday I increased pH to 8.3 again to see if consumption increases and I just missed the subtle decrease in consumption due to lower pH. Cheers

That is very encouraging, thank you. Know what's even more frustrating? I tested my tap water the other day and it tests at like 8.5.

I know there are plenty of tanks out there that run 7.8 to 8.0 successfully. I will try to work with what ive got.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

That is very encouraging, thank you. Know what's even more frustrating? I tested my tap water the other day and it tests at like 8.5.

I know there are plenty of tanks out there that run 7.8 to 8.0 successfully. I will try to work with what ive got.

What is that tap pH importance? Water supplies often push it up (mine is higher than that) to reduce release of lead and copper into drinking water from pipes. My local water supply raises the pH from 6.6-7.1 up to 9.6 using sodium carbonate.

 

[mikst]

Interesting, didn't know that was a common thing. It just was comically frustrating that I'm trying to get my tank pH higher when the water from my tap is higher than I could hope to get.

 

[Garf]

I increased pH to 8.3 again to see if consumption increases

I can report an increase in alkalinity consumption of 15 to 20% ish when running my tank at pH 8.3, compared to pH 8.15. This is obviously a long way from the 100% increase noted in experiments from a well known sales outlet when increasing pH from 7.8 to 8.3. Strangely they only reported a 39% increase in growth from this 100% increase of alkalinity consumption, I expect there may be a chemistry voodoo at play as this implies corals would be more efficient at lower pH than higher pH (CO2 perhaps). I also found it difficult that one of the 2 systems tested failed to show any increase in consumption. This was glossed over and put down to an algae infestation ruining the experiment, leaving a sample size of 1 tank.

 

[drawman]

I can report an increase in alkalinity consumption of 15 to 20% ish when running my tank at pH 8.3, compared to pH 8.15. This is obviously a long way from the 100% increase noted in experiments from a well known sales outlet when increasing pH from 7.8 to 8.3. Strangely they only reported a 39% increase in growth from this 100% increase of alkalinity consumption, I expect there may be a chemistry voodoo at play as this implies corals would be more efficient at lower pH than higher pH (CO2 perhaps). I also found it difficult that one of the 2 systems tested failed to show any increase in consumption. This was glossed over and put down to an algae infestation ruining the experiment, leaving a sample size of 1 tank.

I'm not saying that I trust this sales outlet but the difference may be due to the logarithmic scale of pH? A jump of 8.15 to 8.3 versus 7.8 to 8.3 is a very large difference. I never watched their video or test btw.

 

[Garf]

Due to an "Incident" this morning whilst tinkering, I'm going to be finding out if there are detectable effects from plummeting pH from 8.3 to 7.75, quickly, via CO2 overdose.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Due to an "Incident" this morning whilst tinkering, I'm going to be finding out if there are detectable effects from plummeting pH from 8.3 to 7.75, quickly, via CO2 overdose.

I had a similar incident when I experimented with dry ice in the sump. I noticed nothing particular in the display, but the CO2 was short lived.

 

[Garf]

I had a similar incident when I experimented with dry ice in the sump. I noticed nothing particular in the display, but the CO2 was short lived.

Nothing bad to report this morning. PH spent most of the photoperiod yesterday steadily climbing from 7.75 to the dizzying heights of 8.05, where it stayed all night. Alkalinity tested this morning as almost normal, so no rapid decline in Alk consumption, which I found interesting.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Nothing bad to report this morning. PH spent most of the photoperiod yesterday steadily climbing from 7.75 to the dizzying heights of 8.05, where it stayed all night. Alkalinity tested this morning as almost normal, so no rapid decline in Alk consumption, which I found interesting.

Thanks for the info.