dangles
Valuable Member
Yeah yeah it's a problem many reefers would LOVE to have but I'm concerned my pH is getting TOO high while the family is away on vacation.
My pH normally runs 8.1-8.3ish but when we're away from the house for a week or so the pH climbs to as high as 8.6 (8.3-8.6). Obviously this is a result of all us mouth-breathers being gone
I believe the increased pH is also messing with my alkalinity, causing either an increase in consumption or possibly some precipitation (although I haven't seen evidence of this yet). My dKH was in the 8.5-8.9 range before I left, and dropped to 7.6 over the course of our absence.
So my question is... is a week of 8.3-8.6 harmful to my corals? They seemed to handle it OK. Some of the SPS MIGHT be somewhat stressed, but others seemed to LOVE it and have shown noticeable growth over the course of just one week. A couple of my LPS seem agitated as well. If it IS something I need to address, how can I REDUCE my pH while we're away without messing with other parameters? I use a kalk stirrer and have a skimmer, fleece roller and refugium, but altering the kalk dosing or the refugium light schedule to try to reduce pH will obviously also mess with my nutrient levels. Since I use kalkwasser I can't increase my alkalinity without ALSO increasing pH!
So... what do I do? Maybe nothing at all, hope my SPS don't get nuked and just slowly bring my alkalinity back up over the subsequent weeks after we get back from trips?
My pH normally runs 8.1-8.3ish but when we're away from the house for a week or so the pH climbs to as high as 8.6 (8.3-8.6). Obviously this is a result of all us mouth-breathers being gone
I believe the increased pH is also messing with my alkalinity, causing either an increase in consumption or possibly some precipitation (although I haven't seen evidence of this yet). My dKH was in the 8.5-8.9 range before I left, and dropped to 7.6 over the course of our absence.So my question is... is a week of 8.3-8.6 harmful to my corals? They seemed to handle it OK. Some of the SPS MIGHT be somewhat stressed, but others seemed to LOVE it and have shown noticeable growth over the course of just one week. A couple of my LPS seem agitated as well. If it IS something I need to address, how can I REDUCE my pH while we're away without messing with other parameters? I use a kalk stirrer and have a skimmer, fleece roller and refugium, but altering the kalk dosing or the refugium light schedule to try to reduce pH will obviously also mess with my nutrient levels. Since I use kalkwasser I can't increase my alkalinity without ALSO increasing pH!
So... what do I do? Maybe nothing at all, hope my SPS don't get nuked and just slowly bring my alkalinity back up over the subsequent weeks after we get back from trips?
