New to Reefing

[Gap22]

Hi All,

Slightly new to reefing, did 2 year course a few years ago. Fundamentals haven’t changed but some new stuff which I need to get my head around.

Slight background;
Using the tanks for microfragment project on a 5* resort, collect water directly from the sea and live rock for the culture.

Running water box platinum pro 627L and 200L sump, protein skimmer, pump, heater, illumagic x-120 lighting, water turnover is over 10 times and we have another pump in the tank for fast surface flow and slow substrate flow (all the basics). Want to avoid any dosing as the frags are placed onto the insitu nursery after some growth. That in mind the tank conditions need to mimic exact water quality conditions of the surrounding sea. Everything is running very smoothly, no problems with extraction, fragmentation and implanting into the tank. Conduct 10% water changes weekly and clean filters and proteins skimmer also. All water quality parameters are well within the surrounding seawater. Recently my PH has been increasing, currently at 8.37 and it’s slowly rising. I can not determine what is causing this, I did a large 20% water change two days ago and deep clean of the tank but PH still increasing. The tank is not even half full with fragments so I don’t attribute this to photosynthesis. I’m also have problems with the illumagic x-120, par readings just are terrible for SPS, I can’t seem to get it over 300 Par (is that normal?)

any idea would be great, frags still look very healthy with polyp extensions but starting to get concerned with PH now.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Fish Fan]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

I don't have a great answer to your pH problem, but I'll give this a *bump* andhopefully someone who has experienced rising pH can help. And I don't keep any SPS currently, but I think there's not really too many SPS that truly require above 300 PAR, certainly 350 would be very, very high PAR, in my estimation.

Good luck!