Ph low on fishless cycling, afraid to add fish

[reefnoob9]

I have been holding out on water changes in my 32 gallon, while I waited for ammonia to be shipped to me. Anyway, I got my ammonia, dosed, am midway through cycling (ammonia 2ppm went to 0 and nitrite is at 2 ppm), and noticed that my ph is somewhere between 7.4 and 7.8 (API kit). For a pair of juvenile clowns, I had 8.2 pH in mind (correct?), but now im unsure why my pH turns out this low. I used Reef Crystals from Instant Ocean to make the salt water, and that comes with added magnesium and calcium etc.

So is it purely due to me not changing water for a month that this happened? Unfortunately I had not checked pH ever before, so idk if this was always the case.

I plan on doing a 10% water change after cycling is done. Anything else for me to do to up my pH?

My setup is at 26 C, plenty of flow via two wavemakers and a circulation pump.

 

[Fish Fan]

I wouldn't worry about your pH. It's not dangerously low, if it's even accurate. Many tanks run very successfully with chronically low pH, and many members here at R2R don't even bother to check pH

If you're ammonia was up to about 2.0 ppm and is now down near zero, you're good to add some hardly livestock like Clowns. There's no need to wait for the nitrite to go to zero too.

I hope that helps and good luck!

 

[exnisstech]

What's pH? Seriously it is what it is and unless your looking to speed stoney coral growth it's pretty meaningless as something to worry about or even bother to measure IME