Vacation tip - account for home CO2 changes!

[Formulator]

I already posted this a few days ago in the chemistry forum, but it really blew my mind so thought I would share it here as well. I never imagined 2 adults and a 4 y.o. could have such a profound and rapid effect on CO2 levels in a two-story, almost 2000 sq ft house!

We went on vacation and my tank pH skyrocketed on day 1 away. With this spike came nearly doubled Alk consumption. Fortunately I could adjust my 2-part dosing remotely. All was fine in the end, but I wanted to share because if it weren’t for my apex, I might have had a major catastrophe on my hands.

Here you can see the pH rise after we left (red arrow approximates our departure)

Here you can see the immediate drop upon our return (red arrow again).

 

[dangles]

Haha. I just saw this with my own tank. I normally run 8.1-8.3 but when we were gone my tank was hitting as high as 8.45

 

[adamg77]

Wow! We have been gone for a week in Florida and it is the first thing I plan to check when we get home! I expect the ph is be much higher as well.

 

[Formulator]

Wow! We have been gone for a week in Florida and it is the first thing I plan to check when we get home! I expect the ph is be much higher as well.

The pH change won’t hurt anything, but higher pH promotes faster coral calcification and my alk consumption doubled! Without being able to adjust my alk dosing remotely, my SPS likely would have all died. I had to increase from about 40 mL to 80 mL of alk solution per day to maintain my tank at 9.5 dKH. First day before I noticed, my alk dropped from 9.5 to 8.5.

 

[adamg77]

Wow! Happy you were able to remedy the problem before it got too out of whack!

 

[ingchr1]

I haven't checked Alk, but here's the pH increase from when we were on vacation this past week.