chiton
02/04/2013, 07:23 AM
I have a 265g in the middle of a 1400 sq ft finished basement. During the NH winter months it stays around 60 deg with no heat source. However, with out of town company I run a 32,000 BTU ventless propane stove to heat things up to 68 deg. With no stove running the tank maintains ~8.25 pH. I run saturated CaOH makeup water and a GEO Ca reactor. I will also drip Seachem reef builder at ~20g/1000ml (20g/wk) along with Mg. Specs are very consistent at Ca=440, Mg=1450, Kh=10.5, NO3=0, temp 78 +/- 0.2deg.
The concern I have is when I turn the stove on to heat the basement to 68. It heats up in ~30 min and at the same time the pH drops from ~8.25 to ~7.7. After about 8 hrs of on/off stove heating to maintain the room at 68 deg the pH stabilizes at ~7.9. Turning the GEO off during any of this has no impact (effluent pH is 6.55). Obviously the stove is producing a large amount of CO2 causing the tank pH drop. This Christmas I had my sister in town (family of 4) staying down there for 1.5 wks and the tank stabilized at ~7.8 pH with the extra CO2 chimneys (lower at night when sleeping).
I probably only run the stove ~6 wks out of the yr, and go through ~15 of the rapid pH drops. The tank is ~2 yrs old. The tank is a mixed reef of softies, LPS, SPS.
Should I be concerned about doing this? What sort of impact do you think a rapid pH drop of 0.5 is having? I've had my share of issues maintaining certain corals as with most reefers (mostly lighting issues, but that's another topic), and I haven't noticed any visible inhabitant changes comparing winter to summer (when the stove is not run)...so maybe I've answered my own question :hmm4:
Thanks,
Chiton
The concern I have is when I turn the stove on to heat the basement to 68. It heats up in ~30 min and at the same time the pH drops from ~8.25 to ~7.7. After about 8 hrs of on/off stove heating to maintain the room at 68 deg the pH stabilizes at ~7.9. Turning the GEO off during any of this has no impact (effluent pH is 6.55). Obviously the stove is producing a large amount of CO2 causing the tank pH drop. This Christmas I had my sister in town (family of 4) staying down there for 1.5 wks and the tank stabilized at ~7.8 pH with the extra CO2 chimneys (lower at night when sleeping).
I probably only run the stove ~6 wks out of the yr, and go through ~15 of the rapid pH drops. The tank is ~2 yrs old. The tank is a mixed reef of softies, LPS, SPS.
Should I be concerned about doing this? What sort of impact do you think a rapid pH drop of 0.5 is having? I've had my share of issues maintaining certain corals as with most reefers (mostly lighting issues, but that's another topic), and I haven't noticed any visible inhabitant changes comparing winter to summer (when the stove is not run)...so maybe I've answered my own question :hmm4:
Thanks,
Chiton