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- Aug 30, 2019
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Let me start by saying that I'm not chasing numbers. I'm not making any drastic changes, but I do want to work from the best information I can get. My tank has been up for 2 years, I do a 15% WC every week and have never had pH issues.
Yesterday, I updated the AOS for my ApexEL. A few hours later, things went wonky - my pH was constantly moving. Dropping, raising, repeat, within minutes. I received about 80 notifications (going under 7.8 and then back over) over the course of about 4 or 5 hours. So I decided to recalibrate my pH probe. I was able to do that, with some help from Neptune. I did the manual calibration and it settled on 726 and 1036. Then retesting the calibration fluid gave me 10.0 and 7.01 so it seemed about perfect. In the tank, it said 7.88 at that point (normally my tank would fluctuate between 7.8 and 8.2 every day ).
That was low for that time of day (should have been at least 8.1) so I got out my salifert test kit and it read 8.15 (or thereabouts):
This is a pretty big difference in pH, so I got out a dip strip from our pool. That's not very specific of a test, so my options were 7.8 and 8.4. I would say it was in the 7.8 range which agreed with the Apex.
I knew that overnight the pH would drop further so I got out my old skimmer and popped it in the tank for aeration, hoping it would help. It didn't really seem to. Overnight, the pH dropped as normal and this morning the Apex reads 7.66. I have never seen my tank below 7.8 so this is a bit concerning for me. I tested with Salifert again this morning and it reads about 8.0. Another pool dip test and it looks around the 7.6 to 7.8 range.
So, I've come to the conclusion that my tank has probably been running at a lower pH than I thought. It's hot here right now, and the tank is running warmer (80ish), but even with Apex (which has always tested lower than Salifert) it has never dropped below 7.8 before (or at least not often). What should I be looking for in my tank? None of the fish are stressed. I did lose my BTA recently, and he had been declining for a while. My RFA is happy and healthy and my corals grow well (though I've lost color in some zoas, perhaps due to too intense of lighting, not sure). I have a mystic sunset monti that is a prolific grower. Other happy inhabitants are a ton of zoas, galaxea, chalice (doing well except where the galaxea is killing it...sigh), favites, war coral, duncan, candy cane, ricordea, lepto. The only coral not doing super well is an acan lord. I also have a fair amount of snails and hermits, a skunk cleaner shrimp, a fire shrimp, a Halloween urchin, a conch, and a strawberry crab, all doing very well.
So, thoughts? Suggestions? Is there a better back up test kit than Salifert I should pick up? Changes I should make to help keep my pH above 7.8? My alkalinity (tested last night at midnight LOL) is 9.0. I dose Red Sea liquid alkalinity daily, currently at 7.0 ml over 7 doses from 9 am to 11 pm. My lights are on from around 12:30 PM to 11:30 PM and I run a fuge (that has lots of oxygen bubbles in it) with the light from 11 PM to 8 AM daily.
Yesterday, I updated the AOS for my ApexEL. A few hours later, things went wonky - my pH was constantly moving. Dropping, raising, repeat, within minutes. I received about 80 notifications (going under 7.8 and then back over) over the course of about 4 or 5 hours. So I decided to recalibrate my pH probe. I was able to do that, with some help from Neptune. I did the manual calibration and it settled on 726 and 1036. Then retesting the calibration fluid gave me 10.0 and 7.01 so it seemed about perfect. In the tank, it said 7.88 at that point (normally my tank would fluctuate between 7.8 and 8.2 every day ).
That was low for that time of day (should have been at least 8.1) so I got out my salifert test kit and it read 8.15 (or thereabouts):
This is a pretty big difference in pH, so I got out a dip strip from our pool. That's not very specific of a test, so my options were 7.8 and 8.4. I would say it was in the 7.8 range which agreed with the Apex.
I knew that overnight the pH would drop further so I got out my old skimmer and popped it in the tank for aeration, hoping it would help. It didn't really seem to. Overnight, the pH dropped as normal and this morning the Apex reads 7.66. I have never seen my tank below 7.8 so this is a bit concerning for me. I tested with Salifert again this morning and it reads about 8.0. Another pool dip test and it looks around the 7.6 to 7.8 range.
So, I've come to the conclusion that my tank has probably been running at a lower pH than I thought. It's hot here right now, and the tank is running warmer (80ish), but even with Apex (which has always tested lower than Salifert) it has never dropped below 7.8 before (or at least not often). What should I be looking for in my tank? None of the fish are stressed. I did lose my BTA recently, and he had been declining for a while. My RFA is happy and healthy and my corals grow well (though I've lost color in some zoas, perhaps due to too intense of lighting, not sure). I have a mystic sunset monti that is a prolific grower. Other happy inhabitants are a ton of zoas, galaxea, chalice (doing well except where the galaxea is killing it...sigh), favites, war coral, duncan, candy cane, ricordea, lepto. The only coral not doing super well is an acan lord. I also have a fair amount of snails and hermits, a skunk cleaner shrimp, a fire shrimp, a Halloween urchin, a conch, and a strawberry crab, all doing very well.
So, thoughts? Suggestions? Is there a better back up test kit than Salifert I should pick up? Changes I should make to help keep my pH above 7.8? My alkalinity (tested last night at midnight LOL) is 9.0. I dose Red Sea liquid alkalinity daily, currently at 7.0 ml over 7 doses from 9 am to 11 pm. My lights are on from around 12:30 PM to 11:30 PM and I run a fuge (that has lots of oxygen bubbles in it) with the light from 11 PM to 8 AM daily.