Hello everybody,
First I'll describe my setup. I've got a 180, 150, and 80 all draining back into a 220g sump. One hammerhead is pumping water into all 3 tanks(and 2 UV sterilizers), and I've got a drip of city water coming in at 4gph through a BRS Chloramine Monster. There's an Apex in play with 2 powerbar 8's, lab grade pH probe and lab grade ORP probe. None of it's switch ports are in use yet and there's plenty of open outlets on it's power bars.
Stock is full of very hungry(and very effective at destroying alkalinity) fish. Two ~24" catfish(Achara hybrid and TSN), a ~24" Royal Clown Knife, Oscar, Severum, Rainbow Wolf Fish, Port Cichlid, a ~20" Giant Grourami, and a granulosus.
Just speaking from experience with trying to buffer back when I didn't have the sump or the drip, this stock can easily wipe out 100KH in a matter of hours. I'd usually have to buffer from 6.0 to 6.5, wait a couple hours until it's back to 6, buffer to 6.5 again, wait, buffer again, and then maybe it'd hold 6.5 long enough that I could try to buffer up to 7.0/~100KH the next day so as to not shock the fish. If I did so, it'd be less than a week before it was right back at 6.0/0KH. The process was completely unfeasible so I've only done it when I was expecting to add a new fish.
The tap water here in Portland is usually about 7.0pH and 70-80KH.
I was hoping that the drip, since it drips in the volume of the entire system about every 5 days or so, might improve things. No change whatsoever. Still 6.0/0 after a few weeks. Supplements obviously aren't going to cut it because of the drip, and even if I did take time(I'm guessing this would take months) to load the sump up with just enough crushed coral to keep it around 7 and not spike it up to 8, from what I've read, that would be a temporary effect at best, because crushed coral has a finite lifespan and it's ability to introduce KH to the water decreases as a function of time.
Cost and PITA factor aside, it seems like a calcium reactor is a bad(or outright unworkable) solution for a tank that you want to keep around 7pH instead of 8 like you would for it's intended use in a reef system.
So here I am, I'm out of ideas and I'm hoping that somebody here has more!
First I'll describe my setup. I've got a 180, 150, and 80 all draining back into a 220g sump. One hammerhead is pumping water into all 3 tanks(and 2 UV sterilizers), and I've got a drip of city water coming in at 4gph through a BRS Chloramine Monster. There's an Apex in play with 2 powerbar 8's, lab grade pH probe and lab grade ORP probe. None of it's switch ports are in use yet and there's plenty of open outlets on it's power bars.
Stock is full of very hungry(and very effective at destroying alkalinity) fish. Two ~24" catfish(Achara hybrid and TSN), a ~24" Royal Clown Knife, Oscar, Severum, Rainbow Wolf Fish, Port Cichlid, a ~20" Giant Grourami, and a granulosus.
Just speaking from experience with trying to buffer back when I didn't have the sump or the drip, this stock can easily wipe out 100KH in a matter of hours. I'd usually have to buffer from 6.0 to 6.5, wait a couple hours until it's back to 6, buffer to 6.5 again, wait, buffer again, and then maybe it'd hold 6.5 long enough that I could try to buffer up to 7.0/~100KH the next day so as to not shock the fish. If I did so, it'd be less than a week before it was right back at 6.0/0KH. The process was completely unfeasible so I've only done it when I was expecting to add a new fish.
The tap water here in Portland is usually about 7.0pH and 70-80KH.
I was hoping that the drip, since it drips in the volume of the entire system about every 5 days or so, might improve things. No change whatsoever. Still 6.0/0 after a few weeks. Supplements obviously aren't going to cut it because of the drip, and even if I did take time(I'm guessing this would take months) to load the sump up with just enough crushed coral to keep it around 7 and not spike it up to 8, from what I've read, that would be a temporary effect at best, because crushed coral has a finite lifespan and it's ability to introduce KH to the water decreases as a function of time.
Cost and PITA factor aside, it seems like a calcium reactor is a bad(or outright unworkable) solution for a tank that you want to keep around 7pH instead of 8 like you would for it's intended use in a reef system.
So here I am, I'm out of ideas and I'm hoping that somebody here has more!