Installed the following yesterday and today:

• External Air Pump outside house which is connected to air stone and skimmer air intake which was already taking air externally. Fighting low pH with high inside CO2 (need look at addressing for the humans)
• Installed Nova Extreme Pro T5 Fixtures 20 inch (6x18w — 108 watt)

Picture of what I have done to bring in external air through wall to my 24 gal mixed reef. Had to drill hole as external wall is a slab of concrete and did not want to run an airline out a window:

1. Airline #1 from external air pump to air stone in back sump.
2. Airline #2 from external air pump to air stone in back sump.
3. Airline #3 to skimmer.

You can also see an airline coming from reservoir to ATO delivering Kalk.

This has resolved my low pH of 7.6 allowing consistent range of 7.9 – 8.1. Bubbling a water sample outside confirmed it was internal CO2 issue once A/C unit stopped operating in house when temps dropped into 70s here in Florida. When I bubbled it for a few minutes, I was able to raise pH to 8.2 in the sample.

It was trial and error to come up with the above solution as I first tried to resolve with Kalk only which only made minor improvement. Then an airline from skimmer to outside which was followed by airline from external air pump to skimmer and air stone which raised to acceptable range. Found too much air to skimmer so came up with above configuration.

Additional Note: The clear airlines are to two pressure level controllers which cuts the ATO off (one is a redundant in case first fails).

In this photo, you can see how much the low pH swings have upset my hammer and my bright green coraline algae is almost gone.

Related posts:

1. Water Change (3 gal), Maintenance, and New Equipment Completed a water change by vacuuming the chamber holding the closed loop pump, cleaned the closed loop pump, and installed a Micro Jet 320 to stir the chamber the Kalk drips into from the ATO....
2. Ordered New Equipment (RKE Accessories) I saw the RKE RKM-NET module was available so I ordered a few things today: 1 x RKE RKM-NET Module 1 x RKM-PC4 (Will have total of four) 1 x Expansion Sockets 1 x Pinpoint ORP Probe 1 x Bus...
3. Water Change (2 gal) Performed water change and some maintenance. Cleaned the Skimmer and pump. Realized airline supplying external air to skimmer pump was disconnected when working on tank last weekend. This is suspect to have influenced the lower than normal pH this week....
4. Ordered Drew’s Doser Peristaltic Dosing Pump Ordered the peristaltic dosing pump today from Bulk Reef Supply to attach to the Reefkeeper RKM-PC4 to dose Vodka automatically. Should be here sometime this week. See it Here....
5. Installed Euro-Reef Nano Skimmer Today I purchased and installed the Euro-Reef Nano Skimmer for Solana 34G – NS2.5-3 on my 24 gallon Cardiff. I purchased from a LFS and quickly brought it home and installed. I had to modify the hanging bracket by taking...