Recent content by Chris Jury1

Most likely you've got excess CO2 dissolved in the tank water. This is actually a very common problem as buildings tend to have elevated CO2 compared to normal air. Also, respiration in the tank produces CO2 and can further elevate the pCO2 of the aquarium water. Is this a reef tank? How are...

That's a common problem. In order to raise the pH you need to reduce the amount of inorganic carbon in the tank without changing alkalinity(i.e., consume CO2). You can aerate with outdoor air which has a lower pCO2 than the tank water and will drive off CO2. For some folks this is very...

1. Not necessarily. You could have problems with abiotically precipitated calcium carbonate clogging pumps. 2. Calcium reactors sometimes favor disproportionally high alkalinity, depending on the composition of their media. I'd bet that the media has a significant mix of non-calcium carbonate...

Good question. Ion-pairing between Mg and carbonate and bicarbonate as well as poisioning of the growing crystal surface seems to explain most of the maintenance of the supersaturation. Organic ligands of calcium also likely play a significant part in maintaing supersturation in the shallow...

You want to know the pH at 25 C with a pCO2 of 6 uatm, correct? At S = 35 and total alkalinity of 2300 at 25 C with pCO2 = 6 uatm (assuming zero conc. for silicate and phosphate) the pH will be 9.36 on the NIST scale. The easiest way to calculate such information is using the program co2sys by...