PH Insight

[Panicked Reefer]

I am confused with my PH. I have literally thrown everything at raising my PH. I have ran a fresh air line to my skimmer, ran an external fuge with an light schedule opposite of my DT lights with a ton of cheato in it, and am dosing kalk at night, with the weather being what it has the past couple of weeks I have the windows open. I still can not break 8.1. Today I have had the exterior door open but the windows closed and this is what my graph looks like. I have no idea why its bouncing like this. My dos is set to turn on at 8.02. For some reason today I can't break 8.02 with out the kalk.

Any insight to what I am doing wrong would be helpful.

 

[Cory]

How old is your probe and when did you calibrate it? The overflow box can suck in a lot of inside air lowering ph.

 

[Panicked Reefer]

How old is your probe and when did you calibrate it? The overflow box can suck in a lot of inside air lowering ph.

My probe is like 3m old. The last time I calibrated it was about 2 weeks ago. I do have a TREMENDOUS amount of surface agitation.

 

[Cory]

My probe is like 3m old. The last time I calibrated it was about 2 weeks ago. I do have a TREMENDOUS amount of surface agitation.

Im not sure if that would counteract it but you could try slowing the surface agitaion down and see the results.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Try these aeration tests:


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.

pH and the Reef Aquarium - REEFEDITION

by Randy Holmes-Farley For many aquarists, pH is not something that they have much experience with aside from their aquarium. For many, pH is almost a black box measurement: something to be considered, but whose physical meaning makes little sense to them. This article will Read more here...

www.reefedition.com

 

[Panicked Reefer]

Try these aeration tests:


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.

pH and the Reef Aquarium - REEFEDITION

by Randy Holmes-Farley For many aquarists, pH is not something that they have much experience with aside from their aquarium. For many, pH is almost a black box measurement: something to be considered, but whose physical meaning makes little sense to them. This article will Read more here...

www.reefedition.com

I have tried this previously and had a notable difference in the out side air. I lowered my wave makers and reduced the disturbance of the water yesterday evening. There is still a decent amount of surface disruption. This is the result. I'm stumped. I have also noticed that I my PH was not increasing until my T5s came on and started dropping off after they turned off. The PH drops when just my xr15s are on.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have tried this previously and had a notable difference in the out side air. I lowered my wave makers and reduced the disturbance of the water yesterday evening. There is still a decent amount of surface disruption. This is the result. I'm stumped. I have also noticed that I my PH was not increasing until my T5s came on and started dropping off after they turned off. The PH drops when just my xr15s are on.

One aspect of the test is aeration with indoor air to see the change.

I cannot tell from your graph what change happened when you reduced agitation.

 

[Panicked Reefer]

I can't recall the exact numbers but I maxed my checker out on the outside air and dropped a point or two with the inside air test compared to the control.

When I diminished the surface my PH stayed suppressed and did not increase when my lights came on as it normally does.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I can't recall the exact numbers but I maxed my checker out on the outside air and dropped a point or two with the inside air test compared to the control.

When I diminished the surface my PH stayed suppressed and did not increase when my lights came on as it normally does.

Still too much surface CO2, I expect.