PH of your effluent

[Chris Lakies]

I am using Caribsea A.R.M. in my reactor and was wondering where you keep the PH of the effluent. I set the drip and bubble rate like the directions said and when I checked my PH on the digital readout it said 6.97 (stable). The ARM media says it desolves at 7.5 PH.

[golfish]

Chris,
When I used ARM I tried to keep my effluent PH around 6.5-6.7...this depends on your tanks calcium needs. One thing I have found is to try and get your effuent's ALK\KH two to three times what you want in the tank. I like my KH high (12-16) so I shoot for a effluent KH reading around 30.....

I have found that the effluent PH really doesn't mean much. Its all about the KH\ALK.....

Don''t go too low on the PH or your media will turn to mush.

Mark

[slojmn]

I totally concur with golfish. I use A.R.M. as well in my reactor and set the CO2 to get an average pH of about 6.65. I use a pH controller and a solenoid on my setup so it turns the CO2 on and off based on the pH of the effluent. I like my effluent alk level to be between 30-40dHk. I have traditionally had lower alk readings in my tank, rarely does alk get above 9.8dHk. Without the calcium reactor it drops to 7-8dHk despite constant and regular B-Ionic additions. I am hoping since dialing in my recently purchased Myreef Calcium Reactor that I can attain alk readings of 10-12dHk. We shall see . My last calcium reactor never got me over 10dHk and I had some trouble with it overall. This new one is working great.

[dougchambers]

Chris,

Nice to see you got your reactor running. We run our effluent between 6.55 and 6.65. We still getting dialed back in after some effluent clogging and subsequent media melt down.

Good Luck,

Doug