PH too high?

TangsRLife · Mar 11, 2017

So I've been running my ph at around 8.15-8.2 for the past 2 months. One of my bigger acropora colonies died and I completely didn't notice. After a week I noticed that my PH had risen to 8.35 because of the alk that it was dosing even though I didn't need as much since my big colony died. I just fixed my dosing today and I'm coming back down to where I want, but now I've noticed my monties are dulling and kinda bleaching on the tips, my favorites is bleaching is patches, one my acros are beaching on the tips, and my birdsnests, milipora and stylapora are not as extended. Could this have to do with my rise of Ph? It was left at that 8.3 for around a week as I didn't think much of it thinking that I was in the parameters of the reef. Could my beached out colony caused something else to hurt the reef or is it the Ph?

swnoob · Mar 11, 2017

TangsRLife said:
So I've been running my ph at around 8.15-8.2 for the past 2 months. One of my bigger acropora colonies died and I completely didn't notice. After a week I noticed that my PH had risen to 8.35 because of the alk that it was dosing even though I didn't need as much since my big colony died. I just fixed my dosing today and I'm coming back down to where I want, but now I've noticed my monties are dulling and kinda bleaching on the tips, my favorites is bleaching is patches, one my acros are beaching on the tips, and my birdsnests, milipora and stylapora are not as extended. Could this have to do with my rise of Ph? It was left at that 8.3 for around a week as I didn't think much of it thinking that I was in the parameters of the reef. Could my beached out colony caused something else to hurt the reef or is it the Ph?

Sounds like you're confusing your ph with alk. That small of rise in ph will not cause harm to your corals. Sounds more like alk burn. An increase in alk too fast.

TangsRLife · Mar 12, 2017

I kept my alk at 8.7-9 and it's up to 9.9 now. Could that cause it?

Reefltx · Mar 12, 2017

Depends on how fast it went up, likely.

flyfisherman · Mar 12, 2017

9.0 to 9.9 dkh can't be irritating your corals. Neither is that ph swing. Perhaps it was a bigger swing and you didn't catch it on test kits?. Recalibrate your ph probe or if you are manually testing I would seriously question if you caught the ph swing on test kit.

Maybe Something else swung, maybe phosphates, did you recently change media?

swnoob · Mar 12, 2017

flyfisherman said:
9.0 to 9.9 dkh can't be irritating your corals. Neither is that ph swing. Perhaps it was a bigger swing and you didn't catch it on test kits?. Recalibrate your ph probe or if you are manually testing I would seriously question if you caught the ph swing on test kit.

Maybe Something else swung, maybe phosphates, did you recently change media?

I disagree. Not all tanks react the same way to an alk swing. It's possible that he is running very low on nutrients and an alk of 8.7 was already approaching his tipping point. A sudden jump to 9.9 will do damage. At least in my tank it will.

My tank doesn't like alk above 7.5. I can go slightly higher without any issues but once I get to 8.5 my corals will stress. Anything above 9.5 and I will get stn on some sps.