ph problems???

[b_rad_G]

It seems like every time I open the chemistry forum there are multiple people asking about pH. I have decided to make this thread to help clear the air and so maybe new people can find it on search!

The first think you need to do when you discover the so called low pH is put the buffer down and take a water sample outside to aerate. If your alkalinity is sufficient (anything over 7) the sample in fresh air will test within accepted range. If for some reason you have the proper alkalinity and have adequately aerated the water in fresh air and you still have low pH your test is bad.

You shouldn't worry about pH very much anyways unless you run a calcium reactor and if you have a calcium reactor you should know enough about how they work to understand pH. If you don't know what to do then you probably don't need a reactor.

You can not dose anything to bring pH up and stabilize it long term. Buffer won't work. Kalk won't work. The problem is carbon dioxide not a lack of additives.

Since we know carbon dioxide is the true culprit of low pH in the aquarium lets look at how to truly fix it! First if the level of co2 is high enough to drive the pH down then you probably have some gas type appliance that is malfunctioning and/or your house is fairly air tight. If your tank is close to an older cook stove or water heater these could be the culprits. I personally would check into cleaning the burners or making sure the water heater vent is clear. For you people up north with very well insulated and very air tight houses. Your gas appliances should be in a sealed room with a fresh air vent but y'all already know that right!

I'm sure no one will listen but gas appliances is what I do. A cook stove can appear to burn fine but the slightest inefficiency can cause co2 gas in large quantities as well as access water vapor carbon monoxide (the bad one) and aldehydes. Even with complete combustion carbon dioxide will be created and vented somewhere.

So....you can either provide clean oxygen rich air to your tank by running an air tube to an outside source or you can fix the carbon dioxide problem in your house. Option 1 will usually be a lot cheaper but option 2 is much safer. You can build co2 scrubbers and whatnot but if you're that advanced you probably won't ask about low pH.

Once again you can not stabilize pH in a salt water tank by adding buffers or dipping kalk. The problem is 1. co2 or 2. Your test kit sucks. Please stop being crazy about .1 pH. It is insignificant.

 

[mainereefer]

well explains low ph, but my tank has high ph lights off and it wont drop below 8.2 lights on it is almost 9 on 2 different probes...

 

[b_rad_G]

Haha just add some co2!!! Kidding of course.

PH of 9 is pretty high. Have you noticed any negative side effects?

 

[prsnlty]

I live in Florida, tightly sealed house (AC IS EXPENSIVE), no gas anything, good test. Low PH is common in FL. My fix was the airline tube to the outside AND a co2 scrubber for back up. My ph is averaging 8.3 now. Have always worried about so much co2 in my closed house and a way to fix that but so far all I can do is open my doors for a few hours early in the mornings on cooler days.

 

[cdouble]

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I was using the search feature instead of spawning a new thread

I've been struggling with low ph in my tank for about a year now. Low meaning 7.50 to 7.8! I can't seem to break 7.8 which is the "lowest acceptable" level of ph in a reef tank. My house was remodeled in 2005 and is nearly air tight, it also has a gas range with an extraction hood, but I think the house is still way too sealed up.

First I tried buffers. Waste of money as the numbers will just settle right back down where they started in a few hours and then my alkalinity and calcium would be out of wack for several days. Next I read up on co2 scrubbing and or running a line to the outside. After building a scrubber, I was able to get my ph up to 8.0! This was awesome news for me... but after 24 hours, the soda lime in my co2 scrubber was already starting to become inefficient and my ph would drop back down... 7.8 in 24 hours, 7.7 in 48 hours, 7.6 in 72 hours! Awful.

Next, I drilled a hole through my wall and I ran the intake line for my co2 scrubber to the outside. I was able to get the ph to about 8.1 ~ 8.2 by running the line outside and through the scrubber. Even running the line outside however, the soda lime would purple with co2 in a few days and the ph would drop down to 7.9 or so. (Still acceptable so I was ok with that).... but then it continued to drop a week later even with outside air. Upon inspection I noticed that due to the moisture that was outside (miami fl has tons of humidity) my line to the outside was filling with moisture, bugs, dirt and eventually mold and mildew. The mold, bugs and mildew ended up in my co2 scrubber... and eventually I disconnected the line to the outside.

I am currently investigating a fresh air exchanger for my home. A company will be out here tomorrow to see if it is possible. If they can't get a fresh air exchanger in my home, then I'm going to look into setting up an air filter and dehydration cannister for the outside line to the scrubber. It's my final attempt at chasing this stupid number that I'm not supposed to chase!

Got any other tips for me?

System details:
ph test: Apex gold with "lab grade" ph probe.
270g display, 75g sump with refugium. Tons of live rock. Live sand, but not a "deep sand bed".
6 stage rodi from brs
skimmer rated for 400g
wp40es keeps everything in the tank moving

calcium is always kept between 400 and 450
Magnesium is always between 1100 and 1400
alkalinity is always between 9.5 and 11.5
nitrates were high due to a faulty reactor, but are coming back down now. Last test showed them at 25ppm
Phosphates are way down where they should be reading.

 

[fishroomlady]

how is your livestock doing? You make mention that you keep chasing the ph although you've read where you don't need to. If your livestock is thriving and your big 3 are in range, I would not chase ph. Just my .02.

 

[b_rad_G]

You are on the right track. Have you tried a refugium or an algae turf scrubber? Those should help some.

 

[cdouble]

how is your livestock doing? You make mention that you keep chasing the ph although you've read where you don't need to. If your livestock is thriving and your big 3 are in range, I would not chase ph. Just my .02.

My livestock is doing OK. Just ok. My frustration is from lack of growth and sometimes die off. I bought a favia a few weeks ago which is supposed to be a hardy coral...It bleached right away and is nearly completely dead in 2 weeks. It was a big piece, about 6 inches in diameter. $150 down the drain. My torches, hammer, anemones, zoas, mushrooms, everything else is seemingly ok. Frags simply don't grow. I've taken home chalice frags and war coral frags home and the war coral receded a bit, and hasn't budged in 2 months. No growth, no bleach out, no polyp extension, no growth. I've taken home "fast growing" pieces that were fragged from a display tank at the LFS. The other frags in the LFS grow rapidly, maybe a half inch a month, while mine show no growth whatsoever and or die within a few weeks. With all of my water parameters in check, the only thing I can ascertain is that it is my ph that is causing the lack of growth and or die off. My understanding is a ph level below 7.8 will reverse the calcium carbonate process and begin breaking down calcium in the tank and in the coral, therefore killing off the weak ones and causing calcium to rise in my water.

I have a doser that doses magnesium, ca and alkalinity. I'm using reef fusion 1, 2 and another seachem product for magnesium.

You are on the right track. Have you tried a refugium or an algae turf scrubber? Those should help some.

I have a refugium. It's about 2 feet wide, located after my skimmer section in my sump. It has about 40 lbs of live rock in it, a big ball of chaeto that occupies almost half of refugium (the rock holds the chaeto from going through to my ATO section). I have live sand, matrix denitrating rocks and even cichlid pebbles in there.

My lights just turned on about 2 hours ago and my ph is at 7.75 (apex "lab grade probe"). If I'm lucky it will get to 7.78 but that's about all I've come to expect as far as swings go. The only way I can maintain my ph *this high* is by keeping my alkalinity up using reef fusion #2 or Seachem "Balance" buffer that allegedly doesn't effect alkalinity, but clearly and obviously does.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

How long is your light cycle?

 

[cdouble]

How long is your light cycle?

4 Kessil 360's turn on at 12:00pm. They're dimmed to about 20% utilization. Then at 12:30 4 chinese black box LED fixtures turn the blues / actinic / uv lights on and finally at 1pm the whites/reds/greens/yellows in those grids come on. Lights power down in reverse order starting at 8 the whites/reds/greens/yellows shut down. Then at 9:45 the blues shutdown and finally at 10 the kessils turn off and the tank stays lit with the Apex lunar module moonlights for the night. So, 10 hours total. White lights only stay on for 8 hours.

Refugium lights come on at 7pm, for some overlap, and they stay on until 2pm.

 

[b_rad_G]

Are you using carbonate or bicarbonate for alkalinity? Using carbonate should help by using available co2.

 

[cdouble]

Are you using carbonate or bicarbonate for alkalinity? Using carbonate should help by using available co2.

Great question! So I checked the bottle as I had never looked into carbonate vs bicarbonate.

Seachem's Reef Fusion #2 bottle for calcium carbonate and alkalinity says that it is a "mixture of both carbonate and bicarbonate". So, what is a good product I can hook up to my doser to only dose carbonate and not bicarbonate? I was just thinking about if there was anything else I could do that would consume some of the co2 in the system, but besides macroalgae I was coming up blank.

I've tried kalk recently but the ph didn't stay up either which lead me to believe it was a co2 problem and nothing else.

I'm currently soaking my ph and orp probes in vinegar so I can recalibrate them after a rinse in ro.

Thanks for the tips everyone. Sorry to revive such an old thread.

 

[cdouble]

Wasn't sure how to edit, but I found a thread on RC discussing sodium carbonate vs sodium bicarbonate: Sodium Bicarbonate vs. Sodium Carbonate - Reef Central Online Community

So I'll start looking for a sodium carbonate based product to use. If you have any in mind, let me know. Thanks!

 

[redfishbluefish]

Wasn't sure how to edit, but I found a thread on RC discussing sodium carbonate vs sodium bicarbonate: Sodium Bicarbonate vs. Sodium Carbonate - Reef Central Online Community

So I'll start looking for a sodium carbonate based product to use. If you have any in mind, let me know. Thanks!

A very simply solution to your problem of finding sodium carbonate........Simply buy Baking Soda (sodium bicarbonate). I buy mine at Sam's Club for somewhere in the area of 6 dollars for 13 pounds.

Put 2 1/4 cups of this baking soda on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Let cool. You now have Sodium Carbonate. Take all of this and add to a one gallon container. Fill with RO/DI water. You now have a pure Sodium Carbonate "ALK" solution.

I'm not the brains behind this, Dr. Randy Holmes Farley is....HERE.

 

[cdouble]

A very simply solution to your problem of finding sodium carbonate........Simply buy Baking Soda (sodium bicarbonate). I buy mine at Sam's Club for somewhere in the area of 6 dollars for 13 pounds.

Put 2 1/4 cups of this baking soda on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Let cool. You now have Sodium Carbonate. Take all of this and add to a one gallon container. Fill with RO/DI water. You now have a pure Sodium Carbonate "ALK" solution.

I'm not the brains behind this, Dr. Randy Holmes Farley is....HERE.

Excellent! Thank you! That's easy enough. So, I can continue to use Seachem's reef 1 for calcium, then use this diy sodium carbonate mixed in rodi water as the alkalinity part?? this sounds easy and effective, thank you!

 

[cdouble]

I just finished cleaning my ph probe and orp probe. I soaked them in vinegar for 15 minutes, then soaked them in rodi water for a bit before placing back in the tank.

I noticed when I was doing the calibration that the "Settled" numbers were still nowhere near what the solution should have been. The instructions say this is fine but I feel that the 7.01 solution should have read around 700 give or take 10 to 20 points. Mine settled at 766. Same for the 10.01 solution, it settled at 1041.

The probes themselves looked relatively clean before and after soaking them in vinegar.

So, this probe may be bad, or my ph problem is worse than before. After calibration my reading is 7.71 which is .04 lower than before cleaning / recalibrating. (Probe has been in the tank for nearly 45 minutes since cleaning, and this is where the number has settled).

Another thing I noticed while doing the calibration was that my rodi water is coming in with a ph of about 3.88. That is really low! Could my top off water be diluting all of my ph even though all my parameters are otherwise good? What would I need to do to correct this? Run a separate holding tank for top off water and use a kalk mix in it to maintain ph?

 

[b_rad_G]

I can not help you on the pH probe issue. I have never used one and know just about nothing when it comes to probes.

If you think it might be bad you could test it against a known good probe if you have one available. I would be very careful using anything to change pH unless you are absolutely sure its low and not a faulty test.

 

[cdouble]

I can not help you on the pH probe issue. I have never used one and know just about nothing when it comes to probes.

If you think it might be bad you could test it against a known good probe if you have one available. I would be very careful using anything to change pH unless you are absolutely sure its low and not a faulty test.

My API test kit confirms the numbers on the probe but API isn't all that accurate. LFS also has API test kit they used and confirmed the same pH.

 

[abinder]

I'm just starting the hobby, but have the people that are having problems and using ph probes to check the ph, have you tried checking the ph with a chemical ph test kit? I checked my tank ph with a chemical test kit and then calibrated my ph probe with the reading I obtained using the chemical test kit.

I realize that you won't get a reading of 8.25 using a ph chemical test kit, but if you set the probe to what the ph appears to be with the chemical test kit, you can then use the ph probe to monitor any changes in ph that the tank may see.

(Just a thought since I'm a 'newbie' at this hobby.)


Allenn

 

[cdouble]

I'm just starting the hobby, but have the people that are having problems and using ph probes to check the ph, have you tried checking the ph with a chemical ph test kit? I checked my tank ph with a chemical test kit and then calibrated my ph probe with the reading I obtained using the chemical test kit.

I realize that you won't get a reading of 8.25 using a ph chemical test kit, but if you set the probe to what the ph appears to be with the chemical test kit, you can then use the ph probe to monitor any changes in ph that the tank may see.

(Just a thought since I'm a 'newbie' at this hobby.)


Allenn

The Apex neptune ph probe is calibrated using 2 different solutions. A low ph solution of 7.01 and a high of 10.01. First you calibrate on the low ph solution, then repeat the process for the high ph solution. In the end you should have a (re)calibrated ph probe. As stated above, I've used the chemical ph kit by API. But those kits are not as accurate as a digital meter.