I’ve been noticing some interesting changes in my system over the last week and was curious if anybody here could shine some light on this situation.
Roughly two weeks ago I started to to see some cyano showing up here and there..no big deal..I was basting and siphoning out when I had the time. I’m referencing this because this is the only thing that has really changed that I was aware of.
Three days ago I was running my normal tests and noticed my PO4 and NO3 had both bottomed out to 0, triple checked with my hanna and salifert kits respectively. I have been running at approximately .1 PO4 and 10-20 NO3 for quite some time, including the prior testing iteration three days earlier. I’m assuming the almost immediate drop is from the recent cyano outbreak and overall imbalance that my system is experiencing right now.
This is all old news to me, I’ve dealt with it in the past like we all do.
Here’s where things get weird. I check my alkalinity daily and noticed it had jumped a whole point to roughly 9.6 from 8.5 - this also sort of made sense to me (I’m probably off here) but I thought I had read that the consumption of nutrients can sometimes lead to an increase in alkalinity, specifically nitrate.
Here’s the part that’s blowing my mind. Since noticing the fallout in nutrients and change in alk, my pH has absolutely fallen off the map. I generally see 8.05 (daytime) 7.8(night). Over the last three days my daily high has been 7.8 and 7.55 on the low end at night. I recalibrated my apex probe today to verify that the numbers were at least relatively accurate..ambient CO2 levels have stayed with their normal levels range (based of my CO2 monitor).
Mag:1350
CA: 525
System is roughly 9 months old.
I dose 150mL of kalk daily to supplement consumption.
Any explanations for the pH dump?
Roughly two weeks ago I started to to see some cyano showing up here and there..no big deal..I was basting and siphoning out when I had the time. I’m referencing this because this is the only thing that has really changed that I was aware of.
Three days ago I was running my normal tests and noticed my PO4 and NO3 had both bottomed out to 0, triple checked with my hanna and salifert kits respectively. I have been running at approximately .1 PO4 and 10-20 NO3 for quite some time, including the prior testing iteration three days earlier. I’m assuming the almost immediate drop is from the recent cyano outbreak and overall imbalance that my system is experiencing right now.
This is all old news to me, I’ve dealt with it in the past like we all do.
Here’s where things get weird. I check my alkalinity daily and noticed it had jumped a whole point to roughly 9.6 from 8.5 - this also sort of made sense to me (I’m probably off here) but I thought I had read that the consumption of nutrients can sometimes lead to an increase in alkalinity, specifically nitrate.
Here’s the part that’s blowing my mind. Since noticing the fallout in nutrients and change in alk, my pH has absolutely fallen off the map. I generally see 8.05 (daytime) 7.8(night). Over the last three days my daily high has been 7.8 and 7.55 on the low end at night. I recalibrated my apex probe today to verify that the numbers were at least relatively accurate..ambient CO2 levels have stayed with their normal levels range (based of my CO2 monitor).
Mag:1350
CA: 525
System is roughly 9 months old.
I dose 150mL of kalk daily to supplement consumption.
Any explanations for the pH dump?