My tank which is around 5 months old now, lives in the front room of a busy house, furlough and kids off school has meant house being occupied 24/7. Tank has 2 clowns, 5 snails and a RBTA.
All seem well and need to start adding to it, Fish or Corals ? I had noticed that my PH has been dropping down into the mid 7's and not really climbing into the 8's.
did my normal google search and found CO2 brought into the tank via the air tube on the skimmer can lower PH. Being a bit of a geek i had a Raspberry PI zero which i hooked up with a environmental sensor and saw my Air quality shoot up during the day, have attached graph of last 2 days. So i bought a ATI carbo x filter. Magic, PH is steady 8.5 however only a week or so in its close to be all purple and need changing at £15-£20 quid a pop it is going to get expensive (what isn't in Marine). So apart from running the air intake to the outside, (none starter) what are other people doing. I know this is a starter tank and no where near mature but I don't believe the PH gets better with maturity. I hope to grow more macro algae in my refugium which may negate the need for a skimmer but that's a long way off. Your thoughts once again.

The cheapest answer is to ventilate the room more. 

If you are dosing 2 part for your corals,  then you could replace/supplement this with kalkwasser,  which raises pH as a side effect. Add it in small amounts 24/7 is best, a lot of people stir a bit into their top-off container.

I'm really interested in your Pi setup though,  what sensor and software is it?

Hi Andy, is this Kalkwasser more for an established reef tank. Is it a replacement for the Co2 scrubber once i've got a bit more in the tank. Am i running before i can walk with starting out in reef tanks?

The Pi is a Pi Zero W powered from a Extension cable i use for my lights with a USB output on it. The sensor is a Piromoni BME680 which has Air quality, Temp, Humidity and Pressure built in. Software is Balasense from Balena.  This link explains how to do it.  https://www.balena.io/blog/build-an-environment-and-air-quality-monitor-with-raspberry-pi/
I have been trying to get it to work with the Seneye, There are examples on github of this but its a bit beyond me.

Sorry I wasn't clear - it's not a replacement for the scrubber.  It is only appropriate if you have stony corals. When they grow they use alk and calcium, in doing so depleting those from the water.  Kalk adds this back in,  and as an aside it raises pH.

Thanks for the link, looks like an interesting bit of kit,  i'll look into it properly that later. 👍

once opon a time people were advised to run the venturi intake line on the skimmer so it was outside the house . We drilled a hole thru the window frame ...all my top up water is kalk ,which I make up daily as I dont have a reactor. I also dose everything else manual,calcium,mag,and bi carb. I test weekly and have learnt just about how much it needs over the years.

Hi, I wont be doing any drilling through windows. Done some research and as you say mixing it with the top off water seems the logical solution. I think I'm a bit way off for this just yet. Need to get some more corals and fish first.

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@ajm83  - do you add kalk alongside the Triton dosing (pretty sure you were using Triton method?)

No I'm not adding kalk at the moment.  I have done in the past but with normal 2 part from RedSea, not Triton.  Not 100% sure you can combine those without elements getting out of whack.

If I use kalk in my ATO would I need to remove the co2 scrubber as the scrubber has raised the ph to around 8.4. Will adding kalk take it too high.

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