All for reef - ph change?

alex277 · May 14, 2023

My tank has been set up for around 9 months now, currently just a fish only tank, looking to add some coral in the next few months. I am going to start with a few soft coral and lps, going to be an lps dominant mixed reef, going to add a couple easier SPS in but later on. I have a dosing pump and reservoir, and planned on using all for reef, but I’m hearing that it does not raise ph? Since setting up my tank my ph has sat around 7.6-7.8 so I feel I need to buff it when I get to adding coral, I have been using tropic Marin reef salt since I set the tank up. Given my ph is a bit on the low side, is all for reef a viable option? Or am I going to need to look at alternatives that will buff ph? I assumed since it raises alkalinity it would have to, if it doesn’t, why not?

n2585722 · May 14, 2023

I think pH will be more dependent on the CO2 in your air than dosing All For Reef or even KH Buffering. I do both and the KH buffering is one of Randy's recipes with baked baking soda. Here is a graph of my tank with pH and alkalinity readings. My house is always closed up with AC or heating running. It is just two of use and our cat but it has a effect on thr ph. The glitches in the pH graph are from when it was calibrated. The top graph is just temp. The days I am gone the pH does increase. When we have more people in the house the pH really drops. When the grandkids were over I could tell when they would leave the house and come back by the pH of the tank.

GT3000XX · May 14, 2023

My PH runs 7.79-7.85. (fish only aquarium) The only way I was able to get it up was with a CO2 scrubber. It now runs 8.15-8.25 with the scrubber. As previously mentioned it usually is CO2 bringing it down. Buffers are only a short term fix and can precipitate out and calcify your equipment.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 15, 2023

alex277 said:
My tank has been set up for around 9 months now, currently just a fish only tank, looking to add some coral in the next few months. I am going to start with a few soft coral and lps, going to be an lps dominant mixed reef, going to add a couple easier SPS in but later on. I have a dosing pump and reservoir, and planned on using all for reef, but I’m hearing that it does not raise ph? Since setting up my tank my ph has sat around 7.6-7.8 so I feel I need to buff it when I get to adding coral, I have been using tropic Marin reef salt since I set the tank up. Given my ph is a bit on the low side, is all for reef a viable option? Or am I going to need to look at alternatives that will buff ph? I assumed since it raises alkalinity it would have to, if it doesn’t, why not?

It is correct that All for Reef does nto raise pH, while many two part systems do. I personally would not use it in a tank where the pH got below 7.8.