+mcallahan Posted December 5, 2009 Author Share Posted December 5, 2009 ok Mark, i took some of the advice here. I have had an hard time keeping my PH above or at 8 . When you 1st started this thread i saw the part about putting the vent tube for the protein skimmer out the window, My results are as follows. B4 my PH would swing from 8.0 during the day to like 7.89 at night. Now with it outside it stays at 8.05-8.11...all the time, day or night. The accuracy of my PH probe is +/- .03. I will defntly be leaving it like this. The KH seems to not swing so much also for the whole week. Everything seems to be more stable. Thanks alot for the advice. Awesome! Glad it worked. I'm going to put the tube outside next week and see what I get. I've noticed that my tank drops to 8.02 when the window is closed even with the scrubber. Needless to say, our house is pretty tight! I'll be interested to see what happens when I go tube out the window, then tube out the window + scrubber. One thing we have to keep in mind is that even by putting the tube out the window, we're still having the tank sit in a CO2 bath (the inside air), so the pH rise won't be as much as if we had fresh air moving in all the time. I'll do some experiments and report back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offroadodge Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 ya true, i have an exhaust fan in the closet next to the tank that pull the air in room out to the attic. It also pulls fresh air in from window. AHHHHHHHH.......no that you know this it will help. EZR to explain in person but with the canopy vented to the room and the chiller in closet it got pretty HOT int the room, so my cure for this was to install a bathroom "fart" fan in the roof of the closet to vent all the hot air outta the room. It works very well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simon Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 So far so good with the C02 scrubber. The scrubber was added the afternoon of 12/3. pH is generally higher though it has elimated the nighttime pH swings. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. But everything seems happy so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simon Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 Here is a more detailed daily. The first is 12/02/09, cold day with the windows closed no C02 scrubber. The second is 12/04/09 another cold day with the windows closed but with the C02 scruber. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefman Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 John, What program are you using to generate the graphs? Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simon Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 John, What program are you using to generate the graphs? Stephen AquaNotes, I have a Aquacontroller 3 on my reef tank and a Aquacontroller Jr on the seahorse tank. Neptune Systems - AquaControllers - AquaNotes 3.0 New Features Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefman Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 I thought I had heard or read somewhere that you could run AquaNotes on any computer without having to have one of their controllers. Do you know anything about that? I have a Profilux, but would like something more like you have to start graphing the parameters. I think the real value is being able to chart and review the graphs after a period of time has elapsed. Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simon Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 I know you can install Aquanotes on any computer without a Neptune controller but as far as I can tell you would have to input data manually if the controller wasn't supported. I had even heard the current version of Aquanotes doesn't support Neptune's new Apex controller so I don't think it has support for other controllers. If you can extract the data from your Profilux in columns you can just graph it with Excel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simon Posted December 10, 2009 Share Posted December 10, 2009 Anyone have photos of what the spent media looks like? Wondering how dark a purple it is supposed to turn. Mine is still running strong after a week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted December 10, 2009 Author Share Posted December 10, 2009 It will turn purple. Here is a pic of the cartridge once my pH started dropping. Not the best, but you get the idea. Something to note, don't wait for the whole thing to turn purple, the media on the bottom will become exhausted and your pH will drop before the whole cartridge is dead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simon Posted December 11, 2009 Share Posted December 11, 2009 Thanks, sure enough when I got up this morning the media had turned violet and the pH had dropped. Looks like I only get ~1 week out of a load of media. Earlier NonSequitur had mentioned finding 5 gallon pails of soda lime for $50+shipping. NonSequitur could you provide details on where that was from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NonSequitur Posted December 11, 2009 Share Posted December 11, 2009 I forgot to transfer my bookmarks when I reformatted my computer, so I'm having to look for it again... I'll keep looking, but so far the best price I'm seeing is $77 plus shipping here: Sodasorb HP,5 Gal. Pail, 37#,Indicating,4/8,CO2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reybeast Posted December 11, 2009 Share Posted December 11, 2009 i went ahead and changed out my media for the first time and noticed that at least 1/3rd of the media looked the "starting color", so I'm wondering if its worth it to "mix" the media in the cartridge so that alll of it is exposed before changing it out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted December 11, 2009 Author Share Posted December 11, 2009 i went ahead and changed out my media for the first time and noticed that at least 1/3rd of the media looked the "starting color", so I'm wondering if its worth it to "mix" the media in the cartridge so that alll of it is exposed before changing it out? I tried that with my last media changed and when I changed out the media that was 1/2 old, 1/2 new, nearly all of the cartridge had turned purple. It also only lasted 9 days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simon Posted December 11, 2009 Share Posted December 11, 2009 I forgot to transfer my bookmarks when I reformatted my computer, so I'm having to look for it again... I'll keep looking, but so far the best price I'm seeing is $77 plus shipping here: Sodasorb HP,5 Gal. Pail, 37#,Indicating,4/8,CO2 No problem, even with shipping this pail of Sodasorb HP only $100 ($2.71 per pound) which is still 20 bucks cheaper then I paid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 Took the plunge today and drilled a hole in the wall and routed the tube to the skimmer outside. The result: a .3 increase in pH in 12 hrs! Now i'll be interested to see how it holds up over night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simon Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Took the plunge today and drilled a hole in the wall and routed the tube to the skimmer outside. The result: a .3 increase in pH in 12 hrs! Now i'll be interested to see how it holds up over night. Are you still running soda lime and/or activated carbon or just a straight connect outside? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 Are you still running soda lime and/or activated carbon or just a straight connect outside? I'm still running the scrubber for now as I just replaced the media. Here is a nice graph of the stability of my pH over night. It dropped from 8.15 to 8.05 and held it for the past couple of hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mcallahan Posted December 21, 2009 Author Share Posted December 21, 2009 wooo!! Finally for the first time in the life of my tank, my pH is 8.3!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.