What is UV doing to my pH

[ataller]

My pH curve was always very ‘jumpy’ on my current tank (4 years old now). I assumed it was just a quirk of this particular tank.

Well, I was doing some maintenance on the UV sterilizer and it was offline for a few days. Immediately the pH curve became smooth. Interesting.

I have the sterilizer back up and running again and the pH curve immediately starting jumping around again. If you plot the average I’m sure it’s the same but I am curious how exactly the UV is affecting the pH of the tank. My initial googling did not turn up anything helpful.

Does anyone have any insight ?

Thanks

Adam

 

[ataller]

My pH curve was always very ‘jumpy’ on my current tank (4 years old now). I assumed it was just a quirk of this particular tank.

Well, I was doing some maintenance on the UV sterilizer and it was offline for a few days. Immediately the pH curve became smooth. Interesting.

I have the sterilizer back up and running again and the pH curve immediately starting jumping around again. If you plot the average I’m sure it’s the same but I am curious how exactly the UV is affecting the pH of the tank. My initial googling did not turn up anything helpful.

Does anyone have any insight ?

Thanks

Adam

I want to add that the small regular jumps you see on the smoother graph correlate to my kalk dosing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It is likely electrical interference, not a real pH effect. :)

 

[ataller]

It is electrical interference, not a real pH effect. :)

Amazing ! Thanks.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Yeah, the ballast that is used in most UVs put off quite a bit of magnetic interference. Unshielded wires within that range will pick up the noise.

I have an old g1 radion in my sump next to my uv and it sometimes goes crazy with the light spectrum when the uv is on.

Depending on your layout, perhaps all you need to do is reroute the pH probes cable.