Science In Action! Human Effect on pH in the real world.

ccombs · Jan 3, 2020

Note- This is not a controlled or absolute scientific test, just a fun observation.

Just wanted to share something interesting, I love seeing science in action while my wife and I are out of town. My tank (being in my bedroom) has always struggled with low pH. Even bringing in outside air via a skimmer or bubbler has not done all that much.

Anyway, I checked in on my parameters via APEX, and it is interesting to see the effect of no one in the house. Not only is the pH higher due to less carbon dioxide, the nightly swings are less significant because there are not 2 people sleeping in the room.

Check it out!

Next time that I go out of town but my wife stays, I will have to get a screen capture of that. Even just me being gone does have a noticeable difference.

Greg P · Jan 3, 2020

Very interesting, and I'm not surprised to see this.
I try my best to keep fresh air coming into our house even with the cold weather, and use a fresh air intake on my skimmer too.

A couple windows just cracked makes a big difference ...

Billdogg · Jan 3, 2020

Very interesting. Not surprising. And also why I don't bother checking pH.

ccombs · Jan 3, 2020

gregzz4 said:
Very interesting, and I'm not surprised to see this.
I try my best to keep fresh air coming into our house even with the cold weather, and use a fresh air intake on my skimmer too.

A couple windows just cracked makes a big difference ...

Billdogg said:
Very interesting. Not surprising. And also why I don't bother checking pH.

Yeah, not much of a surprise, but I really enjoy seeing aquarium theory play out in the real world and hope it sparks some interest in others!

Scrubber_steve · Jan 3, 2020

ccombs said:
Note- This is not a controlled or absolute scientific test, just a fun observation.

Just wanted to share something interesting, I love seeing science in action while my wife and I are out of town. My tank (being in my bedroom) has always struggled with low pH. Even bringing in outside air via a skimmer or bubbler has not done all that much.

Anyway, I checked in on my parameters via APEX, and it is interesting to see the effect of no one in the house. Not only is the pH higher due to less carbon dioxide, the nightly swings are less significant because there are not 2 people sleeping in the room.

Check it out!

Next time that I go out of town but my wife stays, I will have to get a screen capture of that. Even just me being gone does have a noticeable difference.

Less CO2, & more oxygen

jrill · Jan 3, 2020

Kinda what folks have been saying for years isn't it.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 4, 2020

Billdogg said:
Very interesting. Not surprising. And also why I don't bother checking pH.

Ignorance is bliss? Lol

Billdogg · Jan 4, 2020

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Ignorance is bliss? Lol

;Happy;Happy;Happyand I'm a happy guy!!!;Happy;Happy;Happy

Not ignorance per se - more of a "why worry about something that will literally change values throughout the day and ultimately have little to no effect on the system" sort of thing. Way back in the day I was a numbers chaser and then had problems figuring out what had happened. Added way too much pH booster without understanding what I was actually adding to the system. I was just lucky that it was a fish only tank at the time.