Mastering Reef Tank Chemistry: pH, CO2 Scrubbing, and Trace Element Dosing Explained!

[@hurricaneaquatics]

Add another hose to the CO2 scrubber intake and drill a hole in your skimmer collection cup top and insert the hose. It will recirculate and will steady your PH greatly and increase it. I've been running this way for about 6 months with the scrubber you have. By recirculating, you'll also save your scrubber media and be able to add months to it's life. When you run the skimmer with the intake open like you are, it cleans all of the air in your home that comes through. Recirculating feeds the already cleaned oxygen to your skimmer again.

[@TheBioReef]

Done! Got a 3d printed recirculating lid from fish of hex for my skimmer

[@hurricaneaquatics]

@@TheBioReef Great! Looking forward to hearing about your results.

[@queencityreefs]

Great info 👌🏻🙌🏼✌🏻

[@TheBioReef]

Thanks man!

[@eddyortiz8110]

The rocks are looking 💜 beautiful. The Corals all seem real happy also. Great.🐟

[@TheBioReef]

thanks Eddy!

[@brian-te4xs]

Good thoughts to your tank as it is very nice and beautifully presented. I liked the intro regarding PH.

[@TheBioReef]

Thanks

[@someone6reefs]

Looking forward to see how this goes 👍

[@ellisbarton2261]

Great that you’ve chosen the fauna route it’s definitely one of the best ways to dose your system if not the best, I’d reccomend having a look at their balling light method as that takes care of the majority of the trace keeping them stable and then you’ve just got a few to top up when you Icp

[@pauli1291988]

Nice i run mine pretty similarly your going to love the results.

[@TheBioReef]

Nice, thanks

[@Reefgrrl]

I look forward to seeing your results! I bought a multi-pack of Fauna Marin icp tests and did the first one May 1. I made the adjustments they recommended (bought a couple of bottles of the specific FM traces) and my tank looks happier by the day. Next icp will be Aug 1 so that’ll tell me what worked/needs attention. I looked at the Reef Moonshine program but the shipping was a barrier for me. And the exchange on the dollar. So I’m now invested in seeing what you find out. 😁

[@TheBioReef]

Yeah we are on the same boat then Cindy. I also got a 6 back of tests. I did the adjustment in 1 week and sent another test right away. Some of the trace elements were recommended as one time corrections on the fauna Marin lab page but as daily dosing on the moonshiner’s guide. Also the target for some of the macro and trace elements differ between the two programs. I am going with the moonshiner targets and recommendations but with the FM reagents… I’ll keep you updated !

[@chrishet]

Looking great! I do Reef Moonshiners and like the results but I don't chase numbers...don't trust the ICP result consistency. The RM targets are great IMO.

[@TheBioReef]

nice! yeah really curious to see the one month picture comparison with my coral...

[@Sammy31Dee]

I have my tank upstairs and sump in basement.. using soda ash and the PH stays nice and elevated....pkus the basement has windows i can crack open for air flow

[@doghousereefer]

If the title has “PH” or “Kalkwasser” in it, I’m clicking the video lol, great info

[@TheBioReef]

:) mission accomplished - click bait works :)

[@doghousereefer]

@@TheBioReef 😂😂😂

[@garrycole9187]

I use the moonshiners method for more than a year and it has been day and night. Acros has been so much easier to keep and they have given me colors I couldn't believe was possible. You still have to have good parameters and know what you are doing in terms of just keeping a reef. The problem I see is how accurate are the fauna marin's ICP test. I still use ATI, but most moonshiners have switch to oceamo's test in Switzerland. I think as long as you know the concentration of your elements and the accuracy of your icp, then you can use any system. Honestly, I use maybe just 6 elements daily, and about 3-4 others at about 1-4 dosage monthly after the icp test comes back to correct.

[@TheBioReef]

Thanks Garry! Looking forward to trying this out. Fauna Marin do make some statements about the high accuracy of their tests. I have not seen any explicit comparisons of accuracy of their tests vs ATI. I will trust them for now until shown otherwise

[@spicyreef]

Dosing kalkwasser at night through AM raised my PH from 7.9 to 8.4. It didn't happen overnight but that is all I did. Also have to maintain magnesium or this will fail.

[@TheBioReef]

How much volume of water is that and did it raise the water level in your sump. That’s my current issue. I can’t dose enough kalk to keep a check on ph just at night without having to set off my osmolator high level alarm in my sump

[@spicyreef]

@@TheBioReef Do you have an ATO? 150g I add about 1g of water/night, have to maintain mag. looking at my notes it took about 2 months. you can add a fan for a few weeks to increase evaporation. once it's locked in, I have to decrease the amount of kalk ratio in the dose water or my ph gets too high 8.7+, I made couple of vids on it somewhere cant find them🙃

[@TheBioReef]

@@spicyreef will try to find these vids!!! thanks

[@sheltersme3083]

What do you try to keep your nitrates and phosphate at please?

[@TheBioReef]

5 ppm and 0.05 ppm

[@StubbyAcro]

Have you tried dosing kalkwasser only at night? Basically you let water evaporates during the day and top off all the evaporated water with kalkwasser at night.

[@TheBioReef]

I tried that but ran into a couple of minor issues. 1) in the summer, evaporation rate is considerably low because of the excess humidity and that means that I can’t get enough kalk at night to make a sustained impact on ph without having to add more volume thst can evaporate in a single day. 2) inconsistent ca and dkh additions only at night mess up my alk and ca stability 3) effect on ph min is not as predictable as the currently method with controlling the scrubber via skimmer

[@StubbyAcro]

​@@TheBioReef Chris Meckley from ACI Aquaculture said pH is more important than alkalinity so you should put more emphasis on lessening the pH swing instead. He suggests aiming for a pH of 8.3. I suggest you dose as much kalk as possible at night and dose your 2-part during the day when the alkalinity is low. That way you can lessen both alkalinity and pH swings. CO2 scrubber works but kalk is cheaper and less of a hassle. Do consider this if you find changing your CO2 scrubber a pain in the rear end. Also, Chris Meckley is against kalk stirrer as kalk contain impurities(as with other kh and calcium supplements). He suggests mixing a kalk solution at max saturation in a barrel and dose only the clear liquid. You could install an air exchange unit. Reefbum said it made a huge different on the pH.

[@TheBioReef]

@@StubbyAcro thanks man! Right now - I am very happy with the media consumption of the scrubber - it’s only used a couple of hours a day; I am only using it to guard against going lower than 8..15 at night. I think an average of 8.3 might be totally possible as the corals grow… from my experience with the Reefer250, a high average ph was so much easier to obtain when you have a large biomass of corals taking up co2 during the day. Also considered air exhange but it’s big initial investment in $ and does not in interfere help me fine tune min ph like the scrubber does now. Thanks for your tips

[@Felis-Concolor]

@@StubbyAcroare there any ways to dose Kalk by hand or is that frowned upon?

[@StubbyAcro]

@@Felis-Concolor Just buy a doser. The jebao one is cheap.

[@markushoehle1207]

Go with balling light. The trace elements are in separated bottels pre mixed. This should cover most of the tank demands and adjust according icp

[@TheBioReef]

i wanted to try the seperate elements like the moonshiner method! its more work for sure, but i do love some of the moonshiner tanks and i am curious if i can recreate their success

[@TrevorHiller]

I have a hunch the common denominator amongst moonshiner tanks isn’t individually dosed trace elements, it’s reefers who are extremely focused and methodical on their tanks. Just a theory.

[@TheBioReef]

@@TrevorHiller hahaha - great hypothesis Trevor... in other words... Nerds have the magic sps touch

[@Brabostaan]

If you have room add the Octo Co2 scrubber and use your current reactor as a moist catcher. Make it recirculating, you will definitly like it.

[@TheBioReef]

Thanks will check them out online

[@so_so_reef]

Are you still using IO salt? Would you say that's why you have low traces? Your video from a few years ago had decent traces on IO.

[@TheBioReef]

Nope been using reef crystal for about 3 years now

[@so_so_reef]

@@TheBioReef why the switch to RC? Basically in the UK salt prices have gone insane and Instant ocean is about half the price of tropic Marin, so I want to make the switch. Your IO vs TMPR video was so helpful in showing there wasn't much difference.

[@TheBioReef]

@@so_so_reef why ? Don’t really have a strong justification for switching other than a lot of viewer comments about giving RC a try because of more trace elements

[@so_so_reef]

@@TheBioReef fair enough! I don't think reef crystals would work for me because the high dKH would make long term storage a potential issue.

[@so_so_reef]

@@TheBioReef cool! I was trying to decide whether to go for IO or RC, so just wondered. You might've mentioned this in a video (I'm a new subscriber and working my way through your videos) but what do you run your alk at? I'd assume fairly high if using RC.

[@andrewlindell8626]

Yep basement tanks have higher CO2. I opened a window, added a fan, more surface water agitation, added kalkwasser

[@BryznsReef]

Man that is a lot of trace elements to dose haha hope the moon method works for you

[@TheBioReef]

Thanks man… only 5 really need to be manually dosed on a regular basis… all the other are just for gradual corrections every month or so

[@rhombifer566]

I think the most important thing is stability

[@TheBioReef]

I agree that stability is important but the actual ph values also matter. So stability at 7.8 will produce less growth than stability at 8.2 for example

[@opethmike]

Just an FYI, the audio on this one is a little bit low

[@TheBioReef]

Thanks Mike

[@opethmike]

@@TheBioReef That aside, the tank is really recovering quite nicely

[@TheBioReef]

@@opethmike thanks Mike

[@rhombifer566]

oh🤔

[@liviamillin9333]

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