My PH is off the charts

[William Chiavetta]

I have no fish or corals in the tank yet just snails. I measured everything yesterday to see what's up and everything was fine except PH it was >9. Was wondering what I should do and what i can do to prevent it in the future. I use RODI water from the sink...

 

[GARRIGA]

Have you calibrated your pH probe or used another test kit to confirm?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Test error. How are you measuring pH?

 

[William Chiavetta]

Have you calibrated your pH probe or used another test kit to confirm?

I'm gonna take it to a store later today when I have time but I use the sera test kit

 

[GARRIGA]

I'm gonna take it to a store later today when I have time but I use the sera test kit

Like Randy mentioned, likely a test error. Why I keep a hand held probe as we ll as titration test kit.

 

[William Chiavetta]

Test error. How are you measuring pH?

Im using the sera test kit. I would imagine it is off due to it being wrong for around 6 months...

 

[William Chiavetta]

Like Randy mentioned, likely a test error. Why I keep a hand held probe as we ll as titration test kit.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[killer2001]

I know you may not want to hear this but, stop chasing pH. Instead, do a few other steps to ensure you won't have to worry about pH.

1. CO2 Monitor. Buy a CO2 sensor that you can place into the room where the fish tank is located. Focus on keeping the CO2 in the room under 600 ppm. I went from around an average of 800-900 ppm to 500-600 ppm and my pH went up drastically.

2. Aeration. Make sure you have proper surface agitation whether it be from powerheads or return pumps. Also I highly recommend a protein skimmer if not for waste collection but at the very least for aeration.

3. Alkalinity. This is pretty much a given but be sure to maintain alkalinity in a good range of 7 to 11 dKH.

I went from 7.8-8.0 to 8.1-8.3 pH (with an alkalinity of 8.5 dKH) following these steps. You could also take it a step further with a reverse light schedule refugium.