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since it was so nice and cool out today we had all the windows and screen doors open so aeration was done inside i figured there wouldnt really be a diffrence. when i dosed kalkwasser daily my average was about 7.9 but my Alk was off the charts.

tonight about 3 hours after a small waterchange i went to dose Pro skimmer and Aminos i checked my pH and it had climbed to 7.96, im going to continue to leave my skimmer line hooked up to the window and see what were at tomorrow morning!

Did you aerate the water indoors or outdoors? A tank that runs 7.7 to 7.9 daily can still support life nicely. What numbers did you measure when you dosed kalkwasser daily?

It is a nice cool day here only about 17 degrees so all the windows in the house are open, if there is truly a CO2 problem today is the day i will find out, it’s at least been 4 hours of fresh air in the house and my pH is still 7.65. i double checked the probe again using calibration fluid and its spot on.

i made myself a bucket of RODI aerated for about an hour and mixed in the salt, i then let it aerate for about 40 min with periodical stirring before i fine-tuned my salinity i then checked my pH it was 7.9 this doesn’t sound right fresh SW should be more like 8.2 right?? the brand of salt is instant ocean im considering trying out some different brands to see if it helps my problem, im going to continue to let the bucket of water "age" and see if there is any change

p.s the calibration fluid im using is lab grade and came in 500ml bottles, i have been very carefull not to contaminate it, aloquots are portioned out and used fluid is never put back in the bottle it is always discarded, and caps are always sealed very tightly im going to be ordering fresh bottles from Lab depot wednesday just to see if maybe they have "gone bad"

You can't compare it to the freshwater top-off water. If you want to do a test, take a cup of tank water outside, aerate it with a pump and airstone, and then bring it back in for a quick pH measurement. Also, mix up your saltwater and test the newly mixed water's pH and let us know your reading.

i agree the numbers all seem to be in check...but one must be wrong, the only reason i dont think its my probe is when i put it in my top off it goes to 8.1 i also checked it today in calibration fluid, in pH 4.0 it wend to 3.98 and in pH7.0 it was at 6.99. i continued to leave the 2 large windows open in the room today (one right by the tank) and i also left the air stone in my sump, i think im going to do a large waterchange tomorrow and see what effect that has.

With all your numbers seemingly where they belong, I would tend to think the pH reading isn't accurate. The room is big, open, and not full of pets? They breathe up oxygen and can be the cause of excess CO2 buildup.

saliliny is kept at 1.024 and Mg last time i checked was 1480

as for venting there is nothing specail for the tank its just in the familyroom there is constant air flow

What is your salinity and magnesium levels? Unless your home is sealed tighter than a drum and you have 10 beings living in the home driving up CO2 levels, pH isn't something you have to normally worry about. Are you venting the room that the tank is in?

well it didnt work the highest i got today was 7.7 im starting to think my probe is bad even tho its only about 4 months old and ive recalibrated it 3days ago, when i put it in my top off water it reads 8.1 when i put it in my tank it drops to 7.7...hmmmmm

i considered adding an 02 tank but after posting on RC chemistry forum i realized that it wouldnt really help.

it looks like the next step will be a co2 scrubber but im going to give it a little longer first

Add a co2 scrubber on the air inlet to the skimmer

pick up one of those portable O2 bottles and run it in to your skimmer line

Good luck!

Not trying to he a debbie downer, but in a tank that small the helfrichi firefish will be bullied by the purples and disappear. I can say this with experience. Even keeping a pair of firefish is usually discouraged because they are extremely difficult to get a "true" pair. Things always go well for months but eventually one will likely vanish forever.

Wish some of the images were larger. Tank looks real nice.

I checked some of the stats on your camera. From what I read online it appears to be only auto white balance with no presets that will help. Shooting under LEDs will be difficult without white balance control. If there is a manual setting that allows you to change aperture and shutter speed settings play around with those. I like to fully open the aperture and then get the shudder speed as low as it will go. If it is still over exposed, close the aperture some until it looks right. If not play around with it until you find the right balance. Feel free to ask me any questions.

thanks guys! im really sooo happy i won this battle! with school, work and everything i wasnt sure if id have the time to be dealing with a problematic tank this summer. im glad thats no longer a worry so im just going to finish up my light and let my coral grow! i think my biggest problem now is 1 single aiptasia on the side of my clam which im not going to worry about for now.

what also bugs me if the lack of algea in my tank, i have 1 mexican turbo in there and i have a feeling hes going to end up starving to death....i sorta feel bad

cyano- i will have more pics just as soon as a figure out this darn camera...or replace it i know best buy had a pretty good deal on the d3000. hey melev or any other photography guys, anyideas what could be wrong with my camera (other then it being garbage)
its a Canon PowerShot SX110 IS

id also like to add that if anyone in the london area is reading this (i doubt there is) those purple digi colony/frags behind my green acans are "basicly" free come and get em please...i want them gone

Ahhh cyano is back!! oh wait... that's just a reef addict.com username. Whew... that was a close one.

Congrats on beating it! *walks away from the computer to put up curtains in his dining room by his tank*

also great looking tank keep the photos coming

grats and a high five, it is a great feeling to finally be rid of that nuisance algae isn't it

This is awesome man! I used the link you gave to me awhile back and have learned a lot about LED fixtures since then. I will probably end up doing the project the way you did it as it seems like it will be most useful in the long run. However, I'm also trying to figure out a way to control the lights with my own homemade lighting controller. I currently plan to try and see if I can make everything work running a NetBurner MOD 5231 microcontroller. It has plenty of processing power and a large enough amount of built in memory, but I'm still trying to figure out how to wire the controller into these lights since the board I'll be using only outputs 3.3V.

By the way, the lights look absolutely beautiful in the pics! Thanks for sharing!!