LilElroyJetson
Valuable Member
Some really great advice and feedback on this thread. Great job everyone. ;)
PH problems
- Thread starter gearhead
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I have a 300-watt heater controlled with apex goes from 78 to 78.5. I have a tunzy skimmer rated for a 150gal I have a 75 with about a total of 90gal in the system. What concerns me is that dkh of 12 my ph should be alot higher. I had higher numbers when my dkh was 8. Something is trying to drive it down now. I am just going to watch it ph seems to be slowly creeping back up.
JCOLE
Grower of the Small Polyps
I wouldnt worry about chasing PH but I understand the concern. Have you considered Kalkwasser? If not then maybe give that a try. 1 teaspoon for every gallon of RODI top off water. I love Kalkwasser for this reason. It does a really good job of stabilizing the tank between PH, Alk, and Calcium. Before Kalkwasser I would get a big PH swing from 8.3 at peak to 7.8 in the morning. Once you start dosing kalk you should see an immediate rise and change in PH. After about a week or two then you should see it stabilize. My PH range is 8.15 at its lowest and 8.3 at its highest.
When I first started dosing I would see my PH on my Apex climb after a minute of dosing.
If you do not see an immediate rise in PH from kalk then there is something going on. Possible probe, testing methods, etc.
Just be care with Kalk. It will also raise your Alk and Calcium. If your Alk is high already then I would wait until that comes down a bit before dosing. Otherwise you could shoot your Alk up.
When I first started dosing I would see my PH on my Apex climb after a minute of dosing.
If you do not see an immediate rise in PH from kalk then there is something going on. Possible probe, testing methods, etc.
Just be care with Kalk. It will also raise your Alk and Calcium. If your Alk is high already then I would wait until that comes down a bit before dosing. Otherwise you could shoot your Alk up.
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I am dosing with my dos cal mag and all. It works out to 3ml of mag 9ml of cal and alk has been like 3ml. Using ABC method redsea. I was using nopox but my levels are so low now it's not needed. I strain my frozen food and that helped alot with controlling nutrients. Tank was doing great I have never had to use buffer untill this mess. It's definitely ticked off my corals. The upward swing in ph with light on is normal does anyone know why. Is it the corals and photosynthesis?
JCOLE
Grower of the Small Polyps
Yes. This is normal. Your PH will rise through the day during the light cycle due to photosynthesis.
As long as there isnt a bad sign then I would leave it be for a couple weeks and see how everything works itself out.
Well, an update on this subject when I was checking my nitrates I was using red sea pro kit. It said my nitrates were .25 so since I stopped dosing nopox for a couple of weeks I been checking them every two days. It went up to 2 two days ago. So I decided to check ammonia and nitrites also. My ammonia was .2 and my nitrites where 1. So I thought wow so I have two other kits for checking nitrates and guess what they were actually more like 10 on both other kits so 2 to one I trust that over the other number. Is this increase in ammonia and nitrite do to my original ph problem from the copepods or that I stopped dosing nopox. I can tell you I have started dosing nopox again and in 48 hours my ammonia is undetectable. I guess we all fall victim to not checking ammonia after a while we just check nitrates. But if I had not checked I think it would have been tank crash city. It is really terrible that we can't even trust 1 test kit we need to have 2 of each that's ridiculous. Well, I guess each experience is good if we learn from it. I did have to do one more water change last week and now my ph is starting to act better now 8.0 to 8.1 with light on. But this one contamination of my tank has sent it on a spiral of events. I have a couple of corals that I may loose over this my torch with 3 heads about 4inches and my 5inch meat coral are not happy the torch just barely comes out maybe half an inch or so. I guess everyone on here has probably dozens or more stories of things that have happened in our quest for reef greatness but failure sure sucks some times. It's hard to look at your tank when things are going south. But giving up is not an option when you play god for your fish LOL. I have learned a lot reading things on here and I hope someone can learn from my experience.
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