Ph issue... Potential solutions for low pH. Help me!

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Is .1 really enough ph to make a difference in growth? I can understand going from 7.8 to 8.2 but .1 seems trivial.

Remember it’s a log scale, but in any case, I’m not claiming any particular rise, just questioning the 8.3 as “ideal”,

 

[alindell]

Remember it’s a log scale, but in any case, I’m not claiming any particular rise, just questioning the 8.3 as “ideal”,

Theres lots of anecdotal evidence too that corals grow faster at 8.3. I would say keeping pH 8.2 and higher is better than 8.0 to 8.1. part of it is just what I think is better

 

[DanyL]

For me, when I battled PH of 7.8 on my frag tank, switching my whole Alk supplementation to NaOH made it jump to around 8.2-8.3, and even hit 8.5 with good room aeration or when system uptake is high.

Nowdays I'm switching between Carbonate and Hydroxide depending on the season and system uptake, I do this to actually prevent it from rising too high. I find 8.0-8.2 to be better than having it rise to around 8.4-8.5 and risk precipitation.

 

[kahsta]

My basement tank used to have pH with a high of 7.9. I connected outside air to my skimmer and use a hydroxide based 2part now.

be careful of pesticides being sprayed in lawns and the mosquito sprayers, itll go directly into your tank

 

[Troylee]

For me, when I battled PH of 7.8 on my frag tank, switching my whole Alk supplementation to NaOH made it jump to around 8.2-8.3, and even hit 8.5 with good room aeration or when system uptake is high.

Nowdays I'm switching between Carbonate and Hydroxide depending on the season and system uptake, I do this to actually prevent it from rising too high. I find 8.0-8.2 to be better than having it rise to around 8.4-8.5 and risk precipitation.

No problems with precipitation… the 2 dips you see in my ph is when my top off acts up like today lol.. waiting on a new one! I top off with kalk to keep my ph up and offset the all for reef cost on my tank.

 

[Rollnwthdatide]

8.4 could be better. Research I've done has made it very clear higher pH up to 8.3 is better for growth. Even if I could get it to stay consistently above 8.1 8.2 that would be great. I need it consistently higher than what it is now. Yes I know lots of variables matter, but this is one variable I'm tackling right now.

What research did you do to come to this result?

 

[alindell]

What research did you do to come to this result?

Random articles studies. If you don't believe me don't worry about it. From my research I believe higher pH around 8.3 is better beneficial. Is there evidence that low pH around 7.8 is bad?

 

[DanyL]

No problems with precipitation… the 2 dips you see in my ph is when my top off acts up like today lol.. waiting on a new one! I top off with kalk to keep my ph up and offset the all for reef cost on my tank.

Again, the potential risk for precipitation is higher when you keep PH around 8.4-8.5.

There is also even higher risk when you are using NaOH given that it has even higher PH than kalk, and in a far more concentrated solution.

Higher magnesium, greater turbulence where you dose, dilution of the supplement, etc all can help mitigate it, but the potential is still greater.

I personally had this happen more than a few times, I caught it on time and before it turned into a real problem - but the benefit vs risk simply isn’t worth it for me as I strive to be consistent rather than on the edge, hence why I manage it appropriately.

Edit: just to make it clearer - NaOH as your primary and only Alk source is a whole different beast compared to using kalk as your top off. The momentary spikes are significantly higher than kalk is able to produce.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Edit: just to make it clearer - NaOH as your primary and only Alk source is a whole different beast compared to using kalk as your top off. The momentary spikes are significantly higher than kalk is able to produce.

Although if folks dosing NaOH diluted it and added it slowly, like they do for kalk, it might actually be less of an issue than kalk since it does not also locally raise calcium. :)

 

[DanyL]

Although if folks dosing NaOH diluted it and added it slowly, like they do for kalk, it might actually be less of an issue than kalk since it does not also locally raise calcium. :)

True. But than you largely loose the main benefit of using it over kalk.

You’d still gain a slight edge over kalk in terms of PH (12 vs 14 if I recall correctly), but evaporation would still be your limitation.

Unless of course you’re using kalk as a slurry, but I think that weird trend somewhat disappeared nowadays and you’d than get both to spike hard.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

True. But than you largely loose the main benefit of using it over kalk.

You’d still gain a slight edge over kalk in terms of PH (12 vs 14 if I recall correctly), but evaporation would still be your limitation.

Unless of course you’re using kalk as a slurry, but I think that weird trend somewhat disappeared nowadays and you will get both to spike hard.

Almost no one even tries to dilute the naOH. If you diluted it down to twice the alk potency of kalk, so you can still deliver twice as much alk per day, and dose it slowly like folks do for kalk, I would not be surprised if it isn’t as good or better at not having precipitation as kalk. :)

 

[DanyL]

Almost no one even tries to dilute the naOH.

I actually went the opposite direction - running it at 4M :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

If you diluted it down to twice the alk potency of kalk, so you can still deliver twice as much alk per day, and dose it slowly like folks do for kalk, I would not be surprised if it isn’t as good or better at not having precipitation as kalk. :)

Agreed, and it may work really well for some, but like you said above - it usually isn’t even considered as an option.

For me, even a daily dose twice as potent as saturated kalk would be too much in terms of physical space next to the tank, and I wouldn’t be able to keep up preparing it daily either.

I also don’t see much of a trade off with how I manage it now, carbonate keeps my tank mostly around 8.1-8.2, and for seasons when my PH tanks, Hydroxide keeps it around 8.2-8.4.

Since I like to over engineer things in my head, I played with the idea of keeping both Hydroxide and Bicaronate solutions and each hourly dosage to decide which one to use based on PH - essentially trying to keep both Alk and PH stable. But much like all of the other overly engineered ideas I had - I also realized that it would only add unnecessary additional failure points to the system :grinning-face-with-sweat:

 

[Maize & Blue]

Fishofhex.com makes a 3-D ring that attaches to your skimmer cup that you plug in the fresh air hose to your CO2 scrubber, which makes a complete closed system. It increases your pH because it’s scrubbing already scrubbed air from your CO2 scrubber. I paid like $29 for the system and it increased my pH by .6, so from 7.8 up to 8.4 and it extends the life of your scrubber media by a couple weeks.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, I’m not a fan of pure recirc air for a skimmer since it gives up oxygenation as a benefit of the skimmer. Letting in at least a portion of fresh air is desirable, IMO.

 

[56longroof]

Fishofhex.com makes a 3-D ring that attaches to your skimmer cup that you plug in the fresh air hose to your CO2 scrubber, which makes a complete closed system. It increases your pH because it’s scrubbing already scrubbed air from your CO2 scrubber. I paid like $29 for the system and it increased my pH by .6, so from 7.8 up to 8.4 and it extends the life of your scrubber media by a couple weeks.

I have one of his adapters and it made almost no difference in my tanks ph. I didn't see any improvements until I ran a hose outside to pull in fresh air. That got me from 7.8 to 8.0 for a high. Dosing kalk in the ATO got me to a low at night of 8.0 and high of 8.2-8.3.

 

[Rollnwthdatide]

Random articles studies. If you don't believe me don't worry about it. From my research I believe higher pH around 8.3 is better beneficial. Is there evidence that low pH around 7.8 is bad?

I wouldn't go saying you've done research when all you've done is read "random articles studies".

I would love to read some of what you have though so if you're able to link to some examples, that'd be great!

 

[Troylee]

FWIW, I’m not a fan of pure recirc air for a skimmer since it gives up oxygenation as a benefit of the skimmer. Letting in at least a portion of fresh air is desirable, IMO.

I draw from outside, it made a slight difference but hey! Something is better than nothing lol.. I’d say .2 at best but I’ll take it! My tank likes the temp fluctuations anyways from the Vegas weather! It’s running 77-81 daily right now and in the next few days it will run at 74-77 as we drop from 92 to 69 for a high lol.