Dangers of high pH?

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I fully agree. I will just stop my CO2 scrubber or I will just stop using kalk or stop using phplus. But I haven't heard of any danger regarding a sky high pH so I would like to know if there are even any bad things

What is that Precipitate in My Reef Aquarium? by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com


Figure 9. A reef aquarium experiencing a limewater overdose, with calcium carbonate particles filling the water column. This is the aquarium of Reef Central members Ereefic and Klasikb.

 

[morrisDR]

What is that Precipitate in My Reef Aquarium? by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com


Figure 9. A reef aquarium experiencing a limewater overdose, with calcium carbonate particles filling the water column. This is the aquarium of Reef Central members Ereefic and Klasikb.

Thank you for all the replies. If it goes above 8.7 I will turn off the CO2 scrubber and things will get back to normal. Atm I'm not seeing any white stuff anywhere. But that could just happen in a day so I understand

 

[morrisDR]

Update as of right now. pH varies between 8.6 and 8.78 sometimes it even reads 8.8 and maybe higher because I believe that the kh keeper can't test above 8.80 because one time I had to dose alot of ph plus and kh keeper said that it was 8.80 3 times a day. I hope kh is still stable now lol. My montiporas are growing fast now. Evrything else is not really growing for me :(. Patience is key ofcourse but I am going to do an ICP because last time my metals came high which could decrease my growth. No negative effect seen on the high pH, my nutrients and kh does drop more per day so sadly I have a little struggle with dinos because of the low nutrients.

 

[BluesClues]

Update as of right now. pH varies between 8.6 and 8.78 sometimes it even reads 8.8 and maybe higher because I believe that the kh keeper can't test above 8.80 because one time I had to dose alot of ph plus and kh keeper said that it was 8.80 3 times a day. I hope kh is still stable now lol. My montiporas are growing fast now. Evrything else is not really growing for me :(. Patience is key ofcourse but I am going to do an ICP because last time my metals came high which could decrease my growth. No negative effect seen on the high pH, my nutrients and kh does drop more per day so sadly I have a little struggle with dinos because of the low nutrients.

Have you had any problems with consistently 8.6 or above PH? My ph is at 8.63 I’m worried

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Have you had any problems with consistently 8.6 or above PH? My ph is at 8.63 I’m worried

If you do not have apparent calcium carbonate precipitation issues, then that pH, whether real or test error, is not a problem.

That said, if you want to lower it, simple aeration will do so.

Try this test and see if it drops a lot (if not, it is test error):

pH And The Reef Aquarium

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.