My ph is horrible

[beansbro1]

I’ve been trucking with ph since I set up my tank almost a year ago. It’s a 220g total system volume. I think the Fuge is like 30g reverse light cycle. I can’t even hit 8. I have a 3/4” hose about 10’ going to the outside of my house and hooked directly to my skimmer. I tried dosing Kalk but my tank is all softies right now so if I go by Evap my alk spikes to like 11 so I quit doing that I still barely made it over 8. I have 2 4K gyres on the back wall. With enough surface agitation it makes bubble. Today I took an air pump outside and hooked it up to the home to maybe force some fresh air in. I know a lot of ppl are gonna say don’t chase ph. But 7.5 and lower is an uncomfortable number for my. Here’s my graph for the week. Ph probe is new. And if I put it in each calibration fluid it’s correct also my Hannah tester is within .1. Any recommendations

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I suspect the pH 7.5 is inaccurate unless your home air is extremely high in CO2.

Try this aeration test:

https://www.reefedition.com/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.

 

[Dust Bowl Corals Verified Sponsor]

You can also run your skimmer air line through a container of soda lime. That will give you a good boost.