Please help me. Urgent. Calcium Reactor's PH level

[ilangocanada]

OK, I have finally setup my unit and it working ok

I have question.
This is what recommended:
keep pH value for effluent between 6.5 and 6.7.

Does that mean, eventually PH will be at at at 6.7 for my tank?
My tank is now at 7.7 PH

I am bit confused here. Please help. Thx.

[disc1]

Originally Posted by ilangocanada

OK, I have finally setup my unit and it working ok

I have question.
This is what recommended:
keep pH value for effluent between 6.5 and 6.7.

Does that mean, eventually PH will be at at at 6.7 for my tank?
My tank is now at 7.7 PH

I am bit confused here. Please help. Thx.

No, if the pH in the tank was at 6.7 all the rock would start to dissolve. pH doesn't work like that. There is a little property called buffer capacity that measures a solutions resistance to pH change. So just looking at the pH of two solutions tells you absolutely nothing about the pH after you mix them.

If you run your Ca reactor too fast, dumping all that CO2 into your tank will definitely pull down your pH. There's a fine balance to be found.

[ilangocanada]

Yes, but why r they recommending us to have output at 6.7? isn't that going to bring down the PH level all together?

[Rocdoc]

Yes, it does bring down the pH of your system, but generally by very little. The Calcium Reactor pH has to be low or it won't dissolve the substrate and won't generate any calcium. If you ran it wide open where the effluent was pouring into your tank, you would pull down the pH of the system. That's where the balance comes in. You need to dial back the output of the reactor so you don't drop your system pH too much. If you can't maintain your calcium levels without dropping your system pH, you need to add kalkwasser (usually added to replace evaporated water as a top-off system) or a calcium supplement (which can get expensive).

HTH

[tmz]

It will drop tank ph but not to 6.5-.9. 7.7 if accurate is borderline btw .Needs to be 7.8 or more. The reactor runs at 6.5 to 6.9 to effectively dissolve the media. The effluent that goes into the tank is acted upon by the tanks ph and by the tanks buffering capacity as well as CO2 equilibration with the airso it's effect is lessened.