Low ph, when rest of chemistry is "ok"

[brentlee6969]

Those are pH after aeration?

Outside is not likely that thigh in reality, but it does show that indoor air is high in CO2.

Yes after aeration. All of them aerated about 1.5 hrs. I ran it through the test twice because I also thought that was kind of high. Both times showed 8.6 on hanna meter.

 

[Mical]

You still haven't answered "rest of chemistry is ok" - other parameters please...

If your Spec gravity, magnesium and cal are not in line then your Ph is not going to be accurate.

 

[SlugSnorter]

Rodi water and currently dosing N0pox just to drop nitrates a bit and red sea alk supplement.

NOpox can lower ph, make sure its being dosed and added properly and maybe experiment with it a bit

 

[SlugSnorter]

You still haven't answered "rest of chemistry is ok" - other parameters please...

If your Spec gravity, magnesium and cal are not in line then your Ph is not going to be accurate.

+ 1 to this, we need your params OP

 

[brentlee6969]

coming up give me a few min.

 

[SlugSnorter]

coming up give me a few min.

drink the delicious testing solution and gain its power.

 

[brentlee6969]

drink the delicious testing solution and gain its power.

tastes like kool-aid.

 

[brentlee6969]

Alk - 10.9
Cal - 573
Mag - 1275
Phos - .09

Also this problem came before the introduction of Nop0x.

 

[Scotts210g]

Mag looks a bit low. Do you have a room monitor for Co2 or air quality? I know it’s winter and you may be in cold climate, what is affects of opening a window? Or turning on a room fan?

 

[brentlee6969]

Mag looks a bit low. Do you have a room monitor for Co2 or air quality? I know it’s winter and you may be in cold climate, what is affects of opening a window? Or turning on a room fan?

I am in Florida so even in winter I can have the opposite problem of our northern brothers. I can sometimes open up depending on weather that day.

 

[arking_mark]

Outdoor air is roughly 400ppm CO2. With alk at 11, the expected pH is 8.38.

With a reading of 8.6, we know your meter is off.

With both tank and next to tank readings the same, we know your tank is well aerated.

With a much lower indoor pH reading, we know you have higher CO2 levels.

Because the meter is off, the indoor 7.8 may be higher or lower in reality.

Next step is to either try and recalibrate the probe or replace the probe.

Additionally, you can get an indoor air quality meter that provides CO2 measurements.

Even if your indoor CO2 levels are 1200 (pretty high), your pH should be around 8 and just fine.

 

[brentlee6969]

Outdoor air is roughly 400ppm CO2. With alk at 11, the expected pH is 8.38.

With a reading of 8.6, we know your meter is off.

With both tank and next to tank readings the same, we know your tank is well aerated.

With a much lower indoor pH reading, we know you have higher CO2 levels.

Because the meter is off, the indoor 7.8 may be higher or lower in reality.

Next step is to either try and recalibrate the probe or replace the probe.

Additionally, you can get an indoor air quality meter that provides CO2 measurements.

Even if your indoor CO2 levels are 1200 (pretty high), your pH should be around 8 and just fine.

I hope the case is that it is fine. It is just a little hard to believe that 2 forms of testing show the same ph in the tank and are both off by the same amount.

 

[Scotts210g]

Just curious. Is there a small amount of water at the bottom of the Co2 scrubber media chamber? There should be.. I overlooked it and only one side depleted while the other did nothing. Always the small thing eh??

 

[brentlee6969]

Just curious. Is there a small amount of water at the bottom of the Co2 scrubber media chamber? There should be.. I overlooked it and only one side depleted while the other did nothing. Always the small thing eh??

Every time I change the media I put water in it, but no I do not actively check it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Outdoor air is roughly 400ppm CO2. With alk at 11, the expected pH is 8.38.


With a reading of 8.6, we know your meter is off.

With both tank and next to tank readings the same, we know your tank is well aerated.

With a much lower indoor pH reading, we know you have higher CO2 levels.

Because the meter is off, the indoor 7.8 may be higher or lower in reality.

Next step is to either try and recalibrate the probe or replace the probe.

Additionally, you can get an indoor air quality meter that provides CO2 measurements.

Even if your indoor CO2 levels are 1200 (pretty high), your pH should be around 8 and just fine.

Agree with that as the conclusion, but I think if the pH is reading high at pH 8.6, its is very unlikely to be reading OK or low at pH 7.8.

Thus, I think his pH is low in the tank, and low because the room has high CO2, end of story.

nothing else matters, IMO.

 

[brentlee6969]

Agree with that as the conclusion, but I think if the pH is reading high at pH 8.6, its is very unlikely to be reading OK or low at pH 7.8.

Thus, I think his pH is low in the tank, and low because the room has high CO2, end of story.

nothing else matters, IMO.

Now I have to figure out why the scrubber isn't correcting a lot of this. I have decent surface agitation and skimmer + scrubber runs 24 hrs.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Now I have to figure out why the scrubber isn't correcting a lot of this. I have decent surface agitation and skimmer + scrubber runs 24 hrs.

That may be the exact reason. Surface agitation in high CO2 air and a skimmer with a scrubber are working at cross purposes.

 

[arking_mark]

Agree with that as the conclusion, but I think if the pH is reading high at pH 8.6, its is very unlikely to be reading OK or low at pH 7.8.

Thus, I think his pH is low in the tank, and low because the room has high CO2, end of story.

nothing else matters, IMO.

@Randy Holmes-Farley I guess the question is if something should be done to improve it.

Since we know the meter has issues with accuracy, we still don't know for sure if there is a problem. Say the tank is at 7.6, you'd probably want to get that up a little. If it's at 7.9 or higher, you'd probably just leave it be.

If in fact the house CO2 levels are that high that you have very low pH...you may actually want to remedy that.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree that recalibrating the pH meter is in order. I suspect the real tank pH is pH 7.8 or lower when measured at the same time that the pH 7.8 was previously measured. You'd have to really mess with a pH meter calibration for it to read several tenths of a pH unit high at pH 8.6, and to read too low at pH 7.8.

So perhaps the pH 7.8 is not far off and it is OK. In that case, doing nothing may be fine. If it is lower than pH 7.8, then I agree something might usefully be done for the home air.

 

[brentlee6969]

I also used a color chart ph test I had laying around last night and it appeared to be a little higher ph. Somewhere around 8? I'll have to get some hanna solution to calibrate the meter. The probe was just recalibrated about 2 weeks ago but I'm gonna get some cleaning solution, clean and it recalibrate.