jedimaster1138 Posted February 2, 2014 Author Share Posted February 2, 2014 A new record Friday into Saturday - 7.74. Weeeeeeeeeee. High was a raging 8.02. Lovely. One of my maxima's looks not good. Cyano is all over the tank. I may be forced into a 24 hour lights out just to beat the cyano back a little. It's warmish here today. Warm meaning....40 something as opposed to 10 like it's been. So the overnight low might only drop to high 20's or 30's. Living room window is being left open over night. Wife isn't going to like that when she gets up and comes in here at 7 AM but what am I going to do? I was talking to my super when he was here bending steel to hold the tank together and he suggested two CO2 scrubber canisters daisy chained. I can do that easily, I happen to have an extra TLF 150 laying around. I don't know how much good it will do. SHRUG Last time I changed the media (the other day, mutter) I only filled the chamber halfway. I don't know that I accomplised anything. I've also been thinking about adding a little ROX to purify the air first too. So maybe something like: ---> Room air intake Chamber 1 ROX carbon Soda Lime Some quantity of air space or none? ----> Chamber 2 Soda lime Some quantity of air space or non? ----> Skimmer venturi I have the scrubber on the main skimmer air intake too...not the ozone port. I don't see that it would matter in the positive if I was to move it to the ozone port other than to reduce the scrubber's effective-ness as the ozone port should draw less air due to the smaller diameter tubing. Link to comment
metrokat Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 So Rehype on here installed a CO2 scrubber to stabilize the PH in his previous build. I asked him if he noticed a difference in his tank in anyway between when he had low and swinging PH vs steady and normal PH in his reef and he said no difference. Feel free to ask him. They say don't chase PH. Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 So Rehype on here installed a CO2 scrubber to stabilize the PH in his previous build. I asked him if he noticed a difference in his tank in anyway between when he had low and swinging PH vs steady and normal PH in his reef and he said no difference. Feel free to ask him. They say don't chase PH. ^^...this. If your Alk, Cal and Mag are good then I wouldn't be concerned with a slightly lower pH. Opening a few windows usually helps by reducing the amount of CO2 in the room, which should bump up pH a bit. Link to comment
Adam_Bobomb Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 So happy you were able to save the tank! Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 4, 2014 Author Share Posted February 4, 2014 So happy you were able to save the tank! Thanks Adam. I was just looking through your build thread - completely gorgeous work. I wish I had your skills with a power tool, and the space to work with them. Jealous. I'm still in conversations with Marineland for some kind of restitution.They want to send me a whole new tank on their dime. That's fine, but with the fix in place I don't particularly want to incur the expense and effort to move everything to a temporary situation and then into the new tank. There will be major losses of livestock, so I'm trying to reach some amicable middle ground with them. pH matters. I'll argue this all day because I'm seeing the evidence with my eyes. There's low and then there is low. Most everything I've read does indeed say "don't worry about it unless it gets really low" with really low being south of 7.80-7.90. Same things also say that coral calcification stops around 7.80. Well my nightly low is now 7.74-7.77. Daytime high's are lucky to be 8.05. Also, these are just running averages of samples taken every 10 minutes by the Apex at the location of the probe - which happens to be 12" from the output of the kalkwasser reactor, so one has to assume that they are optimistic readings. Speaking of kalkwasser, I'm now putting 12x13x25 = 3900 ml / day of fully saturated kalkwasser into the tank. That's ~1 gallon of 12.4 pH solution per day spread over 12 doses throughout which isn't making a dent in the pH readings. Calcium (440 ppm) dKH (8-8 1/2) magnesium (1400 ppm) temperature (78 F) PO4- (.07 ppm) NO3- (2-3 ppm) are all in line. Going beyond the measured stuff, here's some observations I've made over the past 5 days from both reading the graphs and using my eyes on the tank. The more I'm home, the worse pH gets. This makes sense. More people = more CO2 in the air because we dare to respire. Windows are closed because you know, I apparently live north of the Wall now. The first time pH really noticeably tanked was on Thanksgiving when there were 7 people and a dog in my 800 sqft apartment with the oven roasting for 4 hours on and the windows closed. CO2 scrubbing media is spent in 24 hours or less. There's a noticeable jump of 0.1 pH every day when the long 48" royal blue LED strip fires up in the morning. Then the next reading, minutes later, shows a drop back of .05 pH. It then sits there for 2 hours till the first 2 T5 tubes strike at which point I observe a jump of .03 ish, then a very, very, very slow climb for another 2 hours till the other 6 bulbs strike. With everything burning pH climbs mostly steadily about .25 as expected. The peak reading is largely irrelevant though - that peak is completely based on where the low was. If the overnight low is 7.80, i'll see 8.05-8.10 - ish as a peak during the back end of the 8 bulb burn. Of course there are limits to photosynthesis this all makes sense. The problem is the valleys. 99% of the bubble algae which had over run the tank is dead and gone now. I was pulling out a cup every few days previously and now it's mostly all gone. It's not just the emerald crabs either - all 4 standpipes - both in either overflow were COMPLETELY covered in the algae. It's now all gone. There's nothing in there to eat it. There were quite literally at least 1000 bubbles in each overflow. They all disappeared around the time the cyano showed up... Cyano sprung up out of nowhere and is spreading rapidly now. The front face of the sand bed is covered daily - there's the nightly lights off partial die off but it comes back heavier the next day. It's moving both left and right and up the rocks to the peaks. I'm also seeing patches in the back on the rocks on either side. A maxima clam is looking like it has the look of slow death. It was always one the of most open and happiest, but now it's partially retracted and I see inner shell often. Hawkins Echinata had fully encrusted its plug and was working on covering the rock underneath it. I observed last night that encrustation had receded and is now back up the plug lip and on the top side of the plug and continuing to recede. This is probably the most disturbing observation I've made. That colony was kicking butt. It still has color but with that tissue recession, I give it 30 days till it is in the trash. *Mutter* Link to comment
metrokat Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Kent Superbuffer dKH. Want to try it? I have a jar that has been opened but barely used. Have you thought about chemi clean for the cyano? Link to comment
Griever Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Dunno if it's been asked, but have you checked the calibration of your probe in a known pH liquid like the calibration packets they sell on Amazon? It might be that your pH meter is out of whack? Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 4, 2014 Author Share Posted February 4, 2014 Kent Superbuffer dKH. Want to try it? I have a jar that has been opened but barely used. Have you thought about chemi clean for the cyano? I'm loathe to use the bottle of ChemiClean sitting in my closet. I did use it successfully in my nano, but that was with no SPS, clams...only 2 fish... Dunno if it's been asked, but have you checked the calibration of your probe in a known pH liquid like the calibration packets they sell on Amazon? It might be that your pH meter is out of whack? Yarp. Re-calibrated last weekend just to verify I wasn't going insane. ( I am but not in this respect :-) )I have 2 different Apex probes (one Neptune, one BRS) and a hand held Hanna. They jive with the wet test tube color test too. Tomorrow morning I will try to test with that test when I get up and the pH is 7.7something. Link to comment
Griever Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Yarp. Re-calibrated last weekend just to verify I wasn't going insane. ( I am but not in this respect :-) )I have 2 different Apex probes (one Neptune, one BRS) and a hand held Hanna. They jive with the wet test tube color test too. Tomorrow morning I will try to test with that test when I get up and the pH is 7.7something. Bummer.. I had borderline low pH for a while in my tank, but through the magic of changing absolutely nothing it's now in the 8.18 - 8.26 range. Wish I could tell you how I did it, but I have no idea. Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 4, 2014 Author Share Posted February 4, 2014 Bummer.. I had borderline low pH for a while in my tank, but through the magic of changing absolutely nothing it's now in the 8.18 - 8.26 range. Wish I could tell you how I did it, but I have no idea. I bet it was seasonal and based on your windows being open... If I could leave my windows open and clear the CO2 out of the apartment the pH would rocket up and things would stabilize. But that's not really an option. We're getting 8 inches of snow tonight and then apparently possibly multiple feet on the weekend. Yay! I'm bringing the refugium back to life soon. Just waiting on rocks and sand and then greenery. I have no idea if a 16x12 fuge is going to make a big dent in the problem even if I light it 18 hours a day, but I guess it can't hurt and it's cheap enough to get going. The pods and nutrient reduction are a nice side benefit, not that I need the nutrient reduction. Link to comment
metrokat Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 What are you using to maintain alkalinity? Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 4, 2014 Author Share Posted February 4, 2014 What are you using to maintain alkalinity? The aforementioned kalkwasser and a little BRS 2-part to help. Link to comment
metrokat Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Which 2 part recipe precisely? Soda ash or sodium bicarbonate? Link to comment
BulkRate Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 If there's abnormal levels of CO2 in your dwelling such that it drives significant PH swings, have you considered running an intake tube from the pump driving your skimmer to the outside world? (That or simply drop an airstone fed by such into your sump) Might help matters without requiring you to leave windows open 7x24. Gah... I hate the idea of doing so even when the temp drops into the 40's... must be the prolonged residence in the South thinning out my Midwestern blood... Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 4, 2014 Author Share Posted February 4, 2014 Which 2 part recipe precisely? Soda ash or sodium bicarbonate? Soda Ash. I checked recently too to make sure I wasn't losing my mind and using the wrong stuff If there's abnormal levels of CO2 in your dwelling such that it drives significant PH swings, have you considered running an intake tube from the pump driving your skimmer to the outside world? (That or simply drop an airstone fed by such into your sump) Might help matters without requiring you to leave windows open 7x24. Gah... I hate the idea of doing so even when the temp drops into the 40's... must be the prolonged residence in the South thinning out my Midwestern blood... I thought of this too. Problem is if there are extremely high levels of CO2 in my apartment, the airstone is just going to further inject those levels into the water unless there is some media in between to scrub out the CO2. In a perfect world I could draw in outside air either via the skimmer venturi or with the airstone...problem is the nearest window is 29 feet from the tank. It also doesn't help that the 2 vents - one in my kitchen, another in my bathroom - that are supposed to suck out stale air up the shaft of the building -- don't actually suck - they blow in. In winter that's lovely because it's ice cold air too. Wonderful when in the shower. Yes that's sarcasm. The more I think about it, if that return vent in the kitchen was actually sucking like it's supposed to, half my problems might go away. Of course the building has NO idea why my entire line of a 19 story building doesn't get any suction through their return vents... Link to comment
Adam_Bobomb Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Thank you for the kind words. Waiting for more sps pics from you.... Link to comment
metrokat Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Dang. I was hoping it would have been a simple matter of switching to soda ash. Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 4, 2014 Author Share Posted February 4, 2014 Dang. I was hoping it would have been a simple matter of switching to soda ash. Srsly. I would be so happy if the answer to this problem was simply "I was being a dumb ass". I'd even happily wear a shirt that said as much if it meant my reef would be reefy and not an acidic coral melting tub. Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 Low pH can also be an indicator of excessive detritus/waste, which would also correlate with the bubble algae/cyano issues: http://people.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/water/dorev.html. You may have a combo of this plus atmospheric CO2 buildup, both causing low pH. Hmmm, if I were in your shoes I'd first try vacuuming out detritus, wherever it resides. If that didn't bring the pH up sufficiently, I'd try bubbling pure oxygen into the system since opening the windows for prolonged periods isn't an option for you in the winter. Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 Low pH can also be an indicator of excessive detritus/waste, which would also correlate with the bubble algae/cyano issues: http://people.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/water/dorev.html. You may have a combo of this plus atmospheric CO2 buildup, both causing low pH. Hmmm, if I were in your shoes I'd first try vacuuming out detritus, wherever it resides. If that didn't bring the pH up sufficiently, I'd try bubbling pure oxygen into the system since opening the windows for prolonged periods isn't an option for you in the winter. That link is the brokeded. If you happen to have a working one I'd certainly read it. I'll pretty much read anything at this point. I have 3 or 4 Randy Holmes Farley articles printed out on my coffee table... I would think that if there was a nutrient related issue I'd see it in testing. I mean I realize the various algae would be eating up a lot of the nutrient from the water column, but I would think I'd still see more than NO3- in the 3 ppm range. That being said I agree with you. Last night I removed some cyano and blasted some more off the rocks. A LOT of ... stuff flew off. I think I am going to use the Apex to vary the MP40 modes throughout the day, perhaps as often as every few hours. Hopefully it helps. Friday I might go dark for 24 hours too. Bubbling pure O2 isn't going to help much with an excess of CO2. I mean it's going to help in general, but it won't remove excess CO2, they are two completely different issues. The problem with O2 is a rather large one though having to do with the very major danger of it possibly causing my building to explode What's interesting is that when I got up Tuesday morning and saw the pH at 7.76 I got fed up and changed the CO2 scrubber media before work. Tuesday night the pH peaked at 8.21 and generally sat between 8.10 and 8.20 during the entire burn of the 8 bulbs. It probably helped that I also cracked the window while at work (for which I caught hell from Mrs.Jedi). Overnight Tuesday - Wednesday (with the window closed) the bottom was 7.90, a vast improvement over the previous day with the old media. I could live with 7.90 nightly bottoms. Unfortunately though, that's not likely to last. This morning I observed the scrubber media to already be half spent - that's in 24 hours. Awesome. I pulled the scrubber hose off the skimmer before work. I'm going to try only using the scrubber over night when the pH drops off the cliff. Perhaps that can extend the life of the media a few days and not cost me a mint in new media. Refugium re-build in progress...more to come... Link to comment
Nano sapiens Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Hmmm, try: http://people.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/water/dorev.html In respect to oxygen saturation, I was thinking along these lines: Decomposition All plants and animals eventually die and decompose. Microorganisms play a major role in the decomposition process. They use oxygen to oxidize organic waste so it is broken down into smaller parts, which can then be recycled for further use. A low dissolved oxygen concentration usually means that there are lots of microorganisms present. Remember, microorganisms consume oxygen (lowering DO) and release carbon dioxide (CO2). What happens when oxygen levels are depleted and there is still organic wasteto be broken down in the water? Even though dissolved oxygen levels in the water are depleted, microorganisms will continue to consume waste matter. However, they now must do it anaerobically (oxygen not present) instead of aerobically(oxygen present). Anaerobic respiration occurs through a completely different mechanism. Instead of giving off CO2 as the main byproduct of respiration, they give off substances such as methane (CH4) and ammonia (NH3). These substances contribute to the foul odor of heavily polluted water. Disclaimer: Not responsible for blowing up your building Anyway, just trying to think a bit outside the box since you are hampered by not being able to open windows much, if at all. Link to comment
metrokat Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Have you tested the CO2 in your water? Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 Have you tested the CO2 in your water? How does one do this? Link to comment
metrokat Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 How does one do this? http://spectrapure.com/Carbon-Dioxide-Test-Kit?filter_name=co2%20test Link to comment
jedimaster1138 Posted February 6, 2014 Author Share Posted February 6, 2014 http://spectrapure.com/Carbon-Dioxide-Test-Kit?filter_name=co2%20test Neat. Premium Aquatics carries it too. I shall have to bundle that with my next order of stuff. Link to comment
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