Can't Raise pH

[A_Blind_Reefer]

FWIW, I'm also in the Phoenix area and have noticed a drop in pH since the weather got hot. Last few weeks its held steady between about 8.0 and 8.1.

I went on vacation recently, leaving my tank for the first time. I was super nervous to leave the tank so I was checking Fusion regularly to see what was going on. About 24 hours after leaving I logged in and my hear skipped a beat when I saw the pH graph. pH was over 8.2. Only took a second to realize that pH was up because there was no one in the house producing CO2. pH stayed high all week while we were out of town, and dropped back down to 8.0 within hours of getting home.

So, I decided to try an experiment and ran my skimmer intake out the window. I wasn't sure if that would be enough to see similar results, since there's still a lot of surface area inside the house, but the results for me at least were pretty definitive.

Current set-up is no good for long term--its literally just a hose sticking out the window--but I will probably rig up something permanent since I'm getting a pretty solid .15 bump in pH. I wasn't too concerned with pH, but this is an easy win.

As for "chasing" pH...I say to each their own. If you're using generally accepted practices (kalk, outside air, co2 scrubbers) to get higher pH, I doubt you're going to do any harm. My tank is at a stage where I want faster growth, my frags are little thumb size nubs. God willing, someday I'll have big beautiful colonies, and maybe dialing back the pH will be a good way to slow down the growth.

I wouldn't stress about it though. And if these generally accepted approaches aren't yielding results, I probably just wouldn't worry about it.

Just keep an eye on temp unless you have a chiller. I tried that as well and my chiller ran three times more than usual to keep the tank temp level. It hasn’t been too hot yet, those 115+ days are coming!

edit.. those 5gallon pails of jorvet co2 are about $112 delivered and I think will last me 4-5 months changing out media every 7 days.

 

[sdreefer619]

Try an air pump with a stone at the end in your overflow. That should help with your ph a bit

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Try an air pump with a stone at the end in your overflow. That should help with your ph a bit

Why do you think that? It might lower his pH if the room CO2 is elevated,

 

[sdreefer619]

Why do you think that? It might lower his pH if the room CO2 is elevated,

It works for me.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It works for me.

Sure, but that does not mean it will work for others.

If it works for you, it means you had inadequate aeration.

But for many folks, the problem is not adequate aeration, but excessive indoor CO2 levels, and that is not helped by more aeration. More aeration can lower the pH in such a setting.

In some tanks, the direction of the pH effect from more aeration changes day to night.

 

[sdreefer619]

If you have adequate aeration. And you still introduce something that aerates it more why wouldn’t it go up.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If you have adequate aeration. And you still introduce something that aerates it more why wouldn’t it go up.

Because that increased aeration may drive more CO2 into the water, lowering pH.

in my tank, aeration even with normal CO2 air lowered pH because the pH ran high.

it’s a mistake to think of aeration as doing anything for pH except moving the water toward equilibrium with the air being used. That may raise, lower, or do nothing for pH.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Because that increased aeration may drive more CO2 into the water, lowering pH.

in my tank, aeration even with normal CO2 air lowered pH because the pH ran high.

it’s a mistake to think of aeration as doing anything for pH except moving the water toward equilibrium with the air being used. That may raise, lower, or do nothing for pH.

Though it is easy to check and implement if you are in scenario that it may increase pH.

If someone takes a cup of tank water, measures pH, throws an airstone into it for a couple hours, and pH goes up then they know aeration will help them (at least at the time they checked. It's possible for this to help certain times of day and not others).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Though it is easy to check and implement if you are in scenario that it may increase pH.

If someone takes a cup of tank water, measures pH, throws an airstone into it for a couple hours, and pH goes up then they know aeration will help them (at least at the time they checked. It's possible for this to help certain times of day and not others).

Certainly, it is easy to check. That's the test I recommend in my pH articles, along with a similar test using outside air (that proves its not a pH measurement error).

From reading thousands of such posts, most people with low pH have it from high indoor Co2, so simple aeration with t hat same air is most often not the answer.

pH and the Reef Aquarium - REEFEDITION

by Randy Holmes-Farley For many aquarists, pH is not something that they have much experience with aside from their aquarium. For many, pH is almost a black box measurement: something to be considered, but whose physical meaning makes little sense to them. This article will Read more here...

www.reefedition.com

The Aeration Test

Some of the possible causes of low pH listed above require an effort to diagnose. Problems 3 and 4 are quite common, and here is a way to distinguish them. Remove a cup of tank water and measure its pH. Then aerate it for an hour with an airstone using outside air. Its pH should rise if it is unusually low for the measured alkalinity (Figure 2). Then repeat the same experiment on a new cup of water using inside air. If its pH also rises, then the aquarium’s pH will rise simply with more aeration because it is only the aquarium that contains excess carbon dioxide. If the pH does not rise in the cup (or rises very little) when aerating with indoor air, then that air likely contains excess CO2, and more aeration with that same air will not solve the low pH problem (although aeration with fresher air should). Be careful implementing this test if the outside aeration test results in a large temperature change (more than 5°C or 10°F), because such changes alone impact pH measurements.

 

[brahm]

I'm in the same boat as you. What throws me off is I had great PH, and now in the spring/summer I have all my windows open have an evaporative cooler pushing a ton of fresh air into the house, and still my ph has been off for months. Prior it was naturally sitting at a high of 8.4-8.5 Now even with a kalk stirrer, outside air, reverse lighting on a fugue, all the things it's ranging from 7.8s-8.1s. Imop I'm not chasing PH but trying to solve why a constant changed and to no avail.

PH on the drop - Can't seem to isolate cause, any suggestions?

I'm trying to understand what is going on with my PH as of the last month. Up until this system (past 20+ years :p ) I arguably ignored PH. It was something I wrote off as not being able to control or accurately monitor so I did neither. However with the advent of tridents handing the big 3, and...

www.reef2reef.com

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[sdreefer619]

That’s why I leave ph alone and don’t really bother too much unless goes below or above a certain point. Ph is a value I don’t chase just monitor

 

[sdreefer619]

Just keep everything stable is what I try to achieve

 

[GSnake]

FWIW, I'm also in the Phoenix area and have noticed a drop in pH since the weather got hot. Last few weeks its held steady between about 8.0 and 8.1.

I went on vacation recently, leaving my tank for the first time. I was super nervous to leave the tank so I was checking Fusion regularly to see what was going on. About 24 hours after leaving I logged in and my hear skipped a beat when I saw the pH graph. pH was over 8.2. Only took a second to realize that pH was up because there was no one in the house producing CO2. pH stayed high all week while we were out of town, and dropped back down to 8.0 within hours of getting home.

So, I decided to try an experiment and ran my skimmer intake out the window. I wasn't sure if that would be enough to see similar results, since there's still a lot of surface area inside the house, but the results for me at least were pretty definitive.

Current set-up is no good for long term--its literally just a hose sticking out the window--but I will probably rig up something permanent since I'm getting a pretty solid .15 bump in pH. I wasn't too concerned with pH, but this is an easy win.

As for "chasing" pH...I say to each their own. If you're using generally accepted practices (kalk, outside air, co2 scrubbers) to get higher pH, I doubt you're going to do any harm. My tank is at a stage where I want faster growth, my frags are little thumb size nubs. God willing, someday I'll have big beautiful colonies, and maybe dialing back the pH will be a good way to slow down the growth.

I wouldn't stress about it though. And if these generally accepted approaches aren't yielding results, I probably just wouldn't worry about it.

I got frags too and in a similar situation getting higher pH from outdoor air, but that's hard to maintain especially during the winter months for me when all windows are closed. Toronto.
Might I suggest a CO2 scrubber. I've installed mine this week and have yet to monitor pH from it's addition. It might beat making a permanent solution for outside air if you do recirculating and buy in bulk.