Protein skimmer and ph
- Thread starter Madimod
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It can help with low ph. Depends on how much Co2 is in the airin the tank room. Some people attach a tube to the air intake to bring in fresh air for outside.
What do think is low ph?
What do think is low ph?
Larry L
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It might help, if currently there's not enough gas exchange for CO2 to reach equilibrium with your room air. Take a water sample and test the pH, then aerate indoors near your tank with an airstone. If the pH goes up, then that means more gas exchange might help and a bigger skimmer might (or might not) help with that. If the pH does not go up, then extra gas exchange won't make a difference either way.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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Skimmers can raise or lower the pH, and may do both depending on the time of day.
Randallh99
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Fuge should help. Generally pH is lowest when lights are off; a fuge with reverse light cycle will help with this issue.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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A refugium with photosynthesizing organisms will tend to raise pH when it is lit since they are consuming CO2.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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You're welcome.
Happy reefing.
Happy reefing.
LeftyReefer
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I think you meant "Take a water sample and test the pH, then aerate outdoors in fresh air with an airstone. If the pH goes up, then that means more gas exchange might help"
Larry L
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No, I meant aerate indoors. The question was about creating more gas exchange by using a bigger skimmer. All that's going to do is mix in more indoor air. So if aerating the sample with indoor air does not raise the pH, then letting the skimmer do it probably isn't going to raise pH either.
LeftyReefer
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Gotcha. That makes sense.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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The full aeration test uses both indoor and outdoor air:
The Aeration Test
Some of the possible causes of low pH listed above require an effort to diagnose. Problems 3 and 4 are quite common, and here is a way to distinguish them. Remove a cup of tank water and measure its pH. Then aerate it for an hour with an airstone using outside air. Its pH should rise if it is unusually low for the measured alkalinity (Figure 2). Then repeat the same experiment on a new cup of water using inside air. If its pH also rises, then the aquarium’s pH will rise simply with more aeration because it is only the aquarium that contains excess carbon dioxide. If the pH does not rise in the cup (or rises very little) when aerating with indoor air, then that air likely contains excess CO2, and more aeration with that same air will not solve the low pH problem (although aeration with fresher air should). Be careful implementing this test if the outside aeration test results in a large temperature change (more than 5°C or 10°F), because such changes alone impact pH measurements.
pH and the Reef Aquarium - REEFEDITION
by Randy Holmes-Farley For many aquarists, pH is not something that they have much experience with aside from their aquarium. For many, pH is almost a black box measurement: something to be considered, but whose physical meaning makes little sense to them. This article will Read more here...
www.reefedition.com
The Aeration Test
Some of the possible causes of low pH listed above require an effort to diagnose. Problems 3 and 4 are quite common, and here is a way to distinguish them. Remove a cup of tank water and measure its pH. Then aerate it for an hour with an airstone using outside air. Its pH should rise if it is unusually low for the measured alkalinity (Figure 2). Then repeat the same experiment on a new cup of water using inside air. If its pH also rises, then the aquarium’s pH will rise simply with more aeration because it is only the aquarium that contains excess carbon dioxide. If the pH does not rise in the cup (or rises very little) when aerating with indoor air, then that air likely contains excess CO2, and more aeration with that same air will not solve the low pH problem (although aeration with fresher air should). Be careful implementing this test if the outside aeration test results in a large temperature change (more than 5°C or 10°F), because such changes alone impact pH measurements.
DeniableArc
Well-Known Member
I recently ran a line from my Red Sea rsk300 directly from the Venturi 10mm hose through the wall to fresh air. By doing this my ph went from 8-8.2 to 8.2-8.4 I haven’t seen any solid results yet but the ph has never dropped below 8.2.
