I think my pH is drunk?

[Siberwulf]

Hey all!

Before I get going, I wanna note that I'm not trying to chase pH. I know mine is a little low, and I think it's due to my house being so wicked air tight. I've not tried the "take it outside trick" but I'm sure a CO2 scrubber would help me raise it *generally*.

Ok, below is a timeline view from the past week. While I hadn't chased pH, I did start to recently monitor dKH and noticed it was pretty low (around 7) so I used a generic calculator (https://reefapp.net/en/dosing-calculator) to bring things in line. That's the first wicked spike you see. I then saw my dKH was dropping .3 on the daily, so I was compensating this by morning dosing of Alk (Red Sea Foundation B) to bring me back up to 8. Wasn't chasing high numbers here. I did this three more times, wanted to let it settle out and see how it went. As you can see, the normal up and down has been replaced with something that is all over the place. I'm going to quit dosing. I tested it this morning and it's up to 8.2.

Should I be worried about this weird pH action? Is this normal for it to meander about like a frat boy?

Note: The red arrows are where I was dosing alk in the AM to replenish.

 

[BadSquishy]

More or less.. it will go up and down according to your light schedule. You do have some pretty sharp jumps though. I would check for bubbles near the probe. Sometimes that will mess up the readings a little. Place it somewhere away from skimmer outputs and keep it tilted at a slight angle. That should help. Here’s what mine looks like:

 

[Siberwulf]

More or less.. it will go up and down according to your light schedule. You do have some pretty sharp jumps though. I would check for bubbles near the probe. Sometimes that will mess up the readings a little. Place it somewhere away from skimmer outputs and keep it tilted at a slight angle. That should help. Here’s what mine looks like:

Ugh, I forgot to mention... those spikes with the arrows are from where I dosed Alk...

 

[BadSquishy]

Ugh, I forgot to mention... those spikes with the arrows are from where I dosed Alk...

Oh ok, in that case yes, your pH fluctuations are normal.

 

[Mical]

Personally I would be checking Alk, Cal & Mag. (especially Mag) If Mag is low the others will fluctuate IME. I'll bet if you get all 3 params inline your Ph will come up. Again take into account your house being "wicked air tight.

I keep my Alk at 8.4, Cal at 450 & Mag at 1350 and both of my tanks average 8.29

 

[Siberwulf]

Personally I would be checking Alk, Cal & Mag. (especially Mag) If Mag is low the others will fluctuate IME. I'll bet if you get all 3 params inline your Ph will come up. Again take into account your house being "wicked air tight.

I keep my Alk at 8.4, Cal at 450 & Mag at 1350 and both of my tanks average 8.29

I just tested Ca/Mg this morning and came up with this:

• Alk: 8.2
• Ca: 410
• Mg: 1360
• NO3: 0 (I know this is not good and I did dose some NeoNitro today. Feeding the fish isn't enough to keep it non-zero and I see my Coraline starting to turn white. I do have some GHA flaring up still and my Red Ogo in the sump is thriving. If it doesn't improve, I'm going to drop my sump lighting schedule to keep the uptake a little lower.)
• PO4: 0.08

I don't feel I have my nitrates under control and I'm super paranoid about Dinos popping back up..it was a bad time.

I'd love to be able to keep a window open to get things up, but honestly, it's Texas. Our weather is out to get us.

 

[Mical]

I just tested Ca/Mg this morning and came up with this:

• Alk: 8.2
• Ca: 410
• Mg: 1360
• NO3: 0 (I know this is not good and I did dose some NeoNitro today. Feeding the fish isn't enough to keep it non-zero and I see my Coraline starting to turn white. I do have some GHA flaring up still and my Red Ogo in the sump is thriving. If it doesn't improve, I'm going to drop my sump lighting schedule to keep the uptake a little lower.)
• PO4: 0.08

I don't feel I have my nitrates under control and I'm super paranoid about Dinos popping back up..it was a bad time.

I'd love to be able to keep a window open to get things up, but honestly, it's Texas. Our weather is out to get us.

#'s look good, maybe more flow via power-heads to get more aeration to the tank. You can DIY a CO2 scrubber fairly inexpensively. BRS has inexpensive units too -> https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/small-co2-scrubber-1-1lb-capacity-icecap.html

If you have a skimmer (in sump) pull the collection cup off and let it overflow into sump for an hour and see if that "ups" your Ph.

 

[Fish Think Pink]

I just tested Ca/Mg this morning and came up with this:

• Alk: 8.2
• Ca: 410
• Mg: 1360
• NO3: 0 (I know this is not good and I did dose some NeoNitro today. Feeding the fish isn't enough to keep it non-zero and I see my Coraline starting to turn white. I do have some GHA flaring up still and my Red Ogo in the sump is thriving. If it doesn't improve, I'm going to drop my sump lighting schedule to keep the uptake a little lower.)
• PO4: 0.08

I don't feel I have my nitrates under control and I'm super paranoid about Dinos popping back up..it was a bad time.

I'd love to be able to keep a window open to get things up, but honestly, it's Texas. Our weather is out to get us.

Agree weather outside of TX house is way worse than anything inside of home

 

[Reefer Reboot]

Just some rambling thoughts,
Regarding your traces, it looks like it happens at the same exact time each day. That and the fact that it is such an abrupt rise makes me think that the spikes are a result of some other kind of influence on the Apex. (Electrical interference from dosing pump?) I am assuming that this is on the 90 gallon tank in your build thread. I think it would be hard to get such a straight up spike followed by such a steep decline with that much water going through the system. Can you zoom in on the spike to see if it went from low to high within a single sample rate?
I have experienced the same phenomena while adding or removing another EB832. I know it's not the same but maybe you have something scheduled to turn on or off at the time these spikes happen.
My experience,

 

[Siberwulf]

Just some rambling thoughts,
Regarding your traces, it looks like it happens at the same exact time each day. That and the fact that it is such an abrupt rise makes me think that the spikes are a result of some other kind of influence on the Apex. (Electrical interference from dosing pump?) I am assuming that this is on the 90 gallon tank in your build thread. I think it would be hard to get such a straight up spike followed by such a steep decline with that much water going through the system. Can you zoom in on the spike to see if it went from low to high within a single sample rate?
I have experienced the same phenomena while adding or removing another EB832. I know it's not the same but maybe you have something scheduled to turn on or off at the time these spikes happen.
My experience,

Yeah, those spikes by the arrows are from dosing Alk. I had to go back and edit my post to note that. (I'm regular on my maintenance!)