Battling Low PH

bevo5 · Jun 6, 2016

So - this is frustrating. For about 4 or 5 days now my PH has been hovering at about 7.9-8.0 on on my main 200g DT. For the 8 months prior to that I was always at about 8.1-8.2. Now, the first part that is frustrating is that my little biocube 29 is at 8.25-8.3 all the time. So already I'm not quite sure why the tank, in the same room, is lower. But I digress.

Tank is in a basement. I never open windows.

The best I can figure....it's been real hot here in Portland and my AC has been running non-stop. I didn't open or close any new windows, but I did turn off a room fan that I had been running 24/7. I kind of think the AC would be circulating air the same as the room fan, but maybe not?

So I turned on the fan again, cracked a window - and I'm going to see what happens.

Question - what could I do to raise the PH? I did a CO2 scrubber and it was just a pain and while it did kind of work, it took me forever to get my skimmer to adjust etc. Is there another piece of equipment that would do something to keep PH up? I'm all for adding equipment.

Thanks.

46gReef · Jun 6, 2016

What's your dKH?

bevo5 · Jun 6, 2016

Ah yeah - forgot some other stats. Sorry.

I tested ALK and it's right at about 8.6-9 (I hate figuring out when the Red Sea test is finally ORANGE - so I put a range). Everything is on dosers so it has always stayed fairly constant.

Everything else:
-200g mixed reef (mostly LPS and then maybe 10-12 small SPS frags)
-15 assorted fish
-ALk 8.6-9
-Cal - 450 (always this high. I barely turn the doser on it and it just stays this high)

I do weekly water changes mixed with Kent. 25g at a time.

The only other variable - I recently saw some symptoms of internal parasites so I've been feeding food laced with Fusion+Metroplex. One small scoop of each mashed up with food and soaked as per Humblefish's suggestion. Been about a week of doing that food daily.

pugcrush · Jun 6, 2016

How are you measuring ph?

46gReef · Jun 6, 2016

Honestly, that isn't really that low. As long as your dKH stays between 8-10 I wouldn't worry too much about your pH. pH swings a lot as I'm sure you know and as long as all your other parameters are good I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jun 6, 2016

IMO, that pH is fine, but it can be raised in a number of ways that relate to removing CO2 from the water.

This has more:

pH and The reef Aquarium
http://www.reefedition.com/ph-and-the-reef-aquarium/

bevo5 · Jun 6, 2016

OK, thanks for the info y'all. I'll check that off the list of immediate things to worry about. The list is already too long!

I got the PH information from my APEX - which I should pull out and calibrate again....and then I doubled checked it with a standard test kit.

Thanks again.