PH on the drop - Can't seem to isolate cause, any suggestions?

[brahm]

No, part of the dino puzzle that we were discussing above.

Ah I see, Dino’s ,I donnu not overly concerned. Been running LNS (wouldn’t consider my setup ULNS as I’m not carbon dosing, nor have bleachy corals and a lack of plant life ) so far no issues (yet).

I’m very much baffled still by my less the ideal ph and why it would suddenly appear. At a loss as to what could be limiting me.

Could it be some odd ball freakish thing like electricity in the tank causing a reaction that lowers ph, or maybe my cheapo Jeabo uv light acting up?!

or maybe my freakishly large sexy shrimp uses too much oxygen?

 

[sixty_reefer]

@Randy Holmes-Farley just trying to help here, if we were to apply the theoretical formula that we were discussing in the other thread to this tank, it would of said that there’s a increase of carbon available in the tank, if it’s N-Doc that is raising wouldn’t that affect ph as more co2 will be present in the water column? Could this be helpful to find why the ph isn’t going up?
Could correct the ratio be implemented in this particular case.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I’m so confident in the theory that if the op was to have a stable reading of 1 or 0.5 no3 for 2 weeks and not see increase in ph that I would stop posting on R2R for 2 months.

 

[brahm]

I’m highly skeptical nitrates will solve a ph issue. My nitrates are not true zero, my tests typically range between 0-10. I’m not carbon dosing or doing any other means of ULNS and I feed heavy given my bio load (2x Cubes W/reef roids, large chunk of algae, pellets on an auto feeder 2x a day & amino acids a few times a week). I’m sure if the GHA gave up I’d see a spike.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I’m highly skeptical nitrates will solve a ph issue. My nitrates are not true zero, my tests typically range between 0-10. I’m not carbon dosing or doing any other means of ULNS and I feed heavy given my bio load (2x Cubes W/reef roids, large chunk of algae, pellets on an auto feeder 2x a day & amino acids a few times a week). I’m sure if the GHA gave up I’d see a spike.

I understand your skepticism towards the idea and a few months back I would to, until I recently started looking into nutrition in more detail and the meaning of movements in residual unused nutrient being the root cause for many of many common problems we face today. Although you are not carbon dosing there is plenty of natural causes in our systems that can cause a small momentarily increase in the availability of carbon, changes in the food schedule, die off of algaes, fish or snail that died in the system are just a few examples of small carbon sources that can occur.
According to some information I have read in a paper from Triton, Organic Carbon and inorganic Carbon (co2) are mostly present in our systems in a set ratio of 9:1 meaning that wend we have more available organic carbon we would of had more available inorganic carbon (co2) also, having more co2 available in the tank could be observed by observing more growth in algaes and lower ph. What I am reading from the parameters in your tank is that there is a decrease in the values that you were running the tank from the last time you have tested no3 and po4 compared to your recent test, this indicates a increase in availability of overall carbon that if feeding heterotrophic bacteria, reducing nutrients that way. Once no3 or po4 hits zero it means that there isn’t enough nutrients available for the bacteria to carry on doing their work at setting the ideal levels of available carbon and more nitrogen is needed to reduce the amount of available carbon, without the aid of N the C element can start to build up fairly easy as we are dependent on heterotrophs to control carbon in a system.
Once the excess carbon is removed you would observe no3 and po4 to stabilise and by then a increase in ph as the inorganic C was reduced over all in accordance with the ratio of Doc to N-Doc.
Obviously all my observation at this point are just purely anecdotal but wend you have tried so much to increase ph would try and increase the amount of nutrients to a constant stable 0.5 or above would be worth?
I hope I have made some sense in my anecdotal observation, in the end of the day it’s your system and you should always research any advice given if the logic behind seems reasonable to you.

 

[sixty_reefer]

In conclusion and I hope you don’t take offence in my anecdotal observations.
I strongly believe that the heterotrophic bacteria in your system is being limited by the nutrient N, heterotrophic bacteria needs a C N P ratio to be able to do it’s job at limiting the amount of C in a system.
This is also very common to see in tanks that are battling invasive algaes where they get stripped of N allowing C to build up and make N-Doc in the form of co2, more available to the invasive algaes to grow faster. The observation of low ph due to the rise of dissolved co2 in the water column is not uncommon to see in this situation.

 

[Crabmanns aquatics]

I'm trying to understand what is going on with my PH as of the last month. Up until this system (past 20+ years ) I arguably ignored PH. It was something I wrote off as not being able to control or accurately monitor so I did neither. However with the advent of tridents handing the big 3, and everything humming along it's afforded me some bandwidth to play with PH.

So here's the scenario.

Where I started.
PH in the Winter was mid 7.8s-8.0
In the Summer/Spring/Fall - with windows open 8-8.3ish - with the swamp cooler running up to 8.5!

Long story short, I got spoiled over summer winter came back ph dropped and I decide it was time to see if I couldn't do something about it.

Where I went

Ran a line for my skimmer outside (Boosted my Ph w/the windows closed from 8-8.2ish
Added a Kalk stirrer, boosted my ph from 8.2-8.4/8.45ish

It was humming along great for the past 6 months or so, and I noticed a huge difference in my animals in the winter they were looking like they did in the summer, with better PE, anemones looked very healthy; not that they looked bad now but really full.

Where I am now. (ignore the 8.06 I was zapping aptasia and it spiked)

As of a month ago, I noticed my PH was creeping up without any changes I figured it was time to calibrate the probe. When I did It dropped, for redundancy's sake, I swapped to a new probe I had stowed away *purchased 6 months ago. At that point, I thought maybe my calibration fluid has gone bad so I purchased a new calibration fluid and a new probe, and it dropped yet again after calibration. I've tried swapping the probes between each other to no avail.

During this time frame outside temps raised and my windows to the house have been open every day; which previously had raised ph. I live in a rural area 400 miles from any city with great air quality.

I have great gas exchange with an absurd amount of surface agitation (nothing has changed in this regard)
My Skimmer is still running outside, I also went through and cleaned it to make sure everything is running as it should; everything checks out.

I tried cleaning out and replacing the Kalk in my Kalk Stirrer. It doesn't seem to want to stay at saturation, however.. I've been adding Kalk by the cup (now up to 3ish), and unless I manually lift and lower the stirrer which is running 24/7 it doesn't seem to agitate it very well, but even without the Kalk reactor I should be at least at 8.0 on the low end as I was prior to adding Kalk.

All other parameters are within expected ranges. The inhabitants all seem fine, I'm not worried about the tank crashing or anything however I can notice a difference in the inhabitants specifically the anenomes they are as "full" as they are when my PH is elevated.

Not sure where to look next. Any suggestions?

Have you thought about a diy CO2 scrubber on your skimmer intake?

 

[brahm]

Mind blown - this morning I woke up to a ph down spike?! (going to remove the second skimmer).

@sixty_reefer no offense taken, I just don’t understand how this would work. I used to run carbon dosed ULNS barebottom tanks successfully for years and never had a ph problem nor do I recall anyone else back in those days sharing similar issues. These days I have a sand bed, feed heavy, I’ll test again but I doubt I’m still at 0 as once I hit 0 I opened up the bypass on my roller matt & reintroduced daily algae feeding for the tangs, and removed 50% of my cheato.

@Crabmanns aquatics i have thought about it but have been hesitant only because I had consistently great ph until a few months ago. I was aiming to
Figure out what changed and why before adding additional means of boosting ph, but at this point I may have no choice

 

[sixty_reefer]

@sixty_reefer no offense taken, I just don’t understand how this would work. I used to run carbon dosed ULNS barebottom tanks successfully for years and never had a ph problem nor do I recall anyone else back in those days sharing similar issues. These days I have a sand bed, feed heavy, I’ll test again but I doubt I’m still at 0 as once I hit 0 I opened up the bypass on my roller matt & reintroduced daily algae feeding for the tangs, and removed 50% of my cheato.

Our microbes may have become soft with domestic life

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Mind blown - this morning I woke up to a ph down spike?! (going to remove the second skimmer).

@sixty_reefer no offense taken, I just don’t understand how this would work. I used to run carbon dosed ULNS barebottom tanks successfully for years and never had a ph problem nor do I recall anyone else back in those days sharing similar issues. These days I have a sand bed, feed heavy, I’ll test again but I doubt I’m still at 0 as once I hit 0 I opened up the bypass on my roller matt & reintroduced daily algae feeding for the tangs, and removed 50% of my cheato.

@Crabmanns aquatics i have thought about it but have been hesitant only because I had consistently great ph until a few months ago. I was aiming to
Figure out what changed and why before adding additional means of boosting ph, but at this point I may have no choice

That spike looks like a measurement issue more than a real drop unless something was added to the tank. pH generally does not change in a spike like way up or down without adding an acid or a base.

 

[brahm]

That spike looks like a measurement issue more than a real drop unless something was added to the tank. pH generally does not change in a spike like way up or down without adding an acid or a base.

No change that I'm aware of everyone was asleep at that time.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

No change that I'm aware of everyone was asleep at that time.

Folks do experience electrical interference issues.

Might also possibly be a bubble stuck to the probe, and snail on it, or some such thing.

Let us know how the pH proceeds after that.

 

[brahm]

Folks do experience electrical interference issues.

Might also possibly be a bubble stuck to the probe, and snail on it, or some such thing.

Let us know how the pH proceeds after that.

Will do thanks, this morning when I woke up and saw the spike I recalibrated the probe (got a new batch of Neptune fluid packets), and once I was doing that removed the cable and reran it tidying up any excess.

On a positive note for good or for bad outside temps are going to hit the 90s here, so I started running the evaporative cooler this afternoon. It sits at the top of the stairs and my tank is located at the bottom. All the air is forced from outside the house down the stairs and envelops the tank.

Keeping my figures crossed that my ph swinging all over doesn't cause too many problems but in a few hours, it shot up to 8.07 and is continuing to rise.

I'm glad my PH is now back on the rise but worried come next winter if I don't resolve whatever was going on the past few months I'm going to be back in the same boat.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm glad my PH is now back on the rise but worried come next winter if I don't resolve whatever was going on the past few months I'm going to be back in the same boat.

Plenty of time to worry about that later. lol

 

[brahm]

Plenty of time to worry about that later. lol

Ha on no, the corals will be so much bigger by than the stakes keeping getting higher.

 

[brahm]

FIgured i'd check back, still no luck. Even with the swamp cooler running (not full time yet) at best my ph is hitting mid 8.1teens and dropping down to 7.8ish nightly..

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FIgured i'd check back, still no luck. Even with the swamp cooler running (not full time yet) at best my ph is hitting mid 8.1teens and dropping down to 7.8ish nightly..

How does the swamp cooler relate?

 

[brahm]

How does the swamp cooler relate?

@Randy Holmes-Farley - The swamp cooler forces outside air across the tank into the stand, etc. The tank is directly in the path of where all the air is forced in order to make it to the far side of the house.

Last summer I was able to remove the outside line for the skimmer as so much fresh air gets pumped into the house when it's running. Typically I've seen elevated ph levels of 8.3+ (Upwards of 8.5) once the swamp cooler starts running.

Yet here is where I am at now.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Ah, OK. I didn't realize it was using outside air.

 

[brahm]

Some updates - Still seeing a nightly low of mid-to-low 7.8s and a high of mid-to-low 8.1s.

Working with AVAST to figure out how to maintain max saturation in their kalk stirrer.
I have a new skimmer & c02 scrubber coming in this week.
I'm toying with the idea of adding an additional probe to compare the ph of effluent once it leaves my second c02 reactor chamber to compare it with ph levels inside my reactor.
And as soon as I can stomach drilling another hole in my wall to add some additional plumbing, I'll be tying a frag system into the display tank that will run on opposite lighting.