Have a few concerns about my alk as well as my cycling process
Setup a WB Cube20
I added water, carribsea life rock, and live sand on 1/07/23
I waited around 9 days (powerhead, return pump, lights on, skimmer off), then added bottled bac and 2 clownfish on the 16th. All my parameters were fine, Ammonia nitrate and nitrite were all 0, ph was around 8.1. I was worried that this was a bit too low, but I figured it would stay stable. Fast forward 3 days, I just checked my ph today, ppm was 133 which converted to 7.4 dkh, meaning I dropped by .7 in just 3 days. Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are all still 0 however.
I'm also noticing brown specs on the substrate, which I want to believe are diatoms, however, I feel like it's too early for diatoms to be appearing, and I feel like it's more likely it's just waste from food and fish waste.
Fish seem to be doing fine but I'm really worried that this sudden drop in PH might be stressing them out or hurting them. I was worried about them burning do to a spike in ammonia, but now I'm more worried about my PH being the thing that does the most harm.
I have a feeling the drop in ph might be because my ATO reservoir water has a PH of around 6.3 according to the LFS, and I'm wondering if whenever I top off the tank if it slowly is decreasing the PH.
Any ideas on how to increase ph? Should I turn on my skimmer? 20% water change? I was conflicted on wc or skimmer just because I wasn't sure if it would harm nitrifying bacteria, but I'm not sure now.
Setup a WB Cube20
I added water, carribsea life rock, and live sand on 1/07/23
I waited around 9 days (powerhead, return pump, lights on, skimmer off), then added bottled bac and 2 clownfish on the 16th. All my parameters were fine, Ammonia nitrate and nitrite were all 0, ph was around 8.1. I was worried that this was a bit too low, but I figured it would stay stable. Fast forward 3 days, I just checked my ph today, ppm was 133 which converted to 7.4 dkh, meaning I dropped by .7 in just 3 days. Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are all still 0 however.
I'm also noticing brown specs on the substrate, which I want to believe are diatoms, however, I feel like it's too early for diatoms to be appearing, and I feel like it's more likely it's just waste from food and fish waste.
Fish seem to be doing fine but I'm really worried that this sudden drop in PH might be stressing them out or hurting them. I was worried about them burning do to a spike in ammonia, but now I'm more worried about my PH being the thing that does the most harm.
I have a feeling the drop in ph might be because my ATO reservoir water has a PH of around 6.3 according to the LFS, and I'm wondering if whenever I top off the tank if it slowly is decreasing the PH.
Any ideas on how to increase ph? Should I turn on my skimmer? 20% water change? I was conflicted on wc or skimmer just because I wasn't sure if it would harm nitrifying bacteria, but I'm not sure now.