Help with low PH

Acorral · May 6, 2018

Hello, I have problem with extremely low PH, it swings from 7.6 to 7.9 and that is after many things I do to keep it as high as possible...

250g heavily stocked sps reef
DSB in tank
Calcium Reactor
Kalkwasser reactor
Chaeto in sump with strong lights
CO2 scrubber on skimmer's air intake
Large deltec skimmer

Calcium 500 ppm
Alk 9dkh
Mg at 1450 ppm

A video from the tank yesterday:

Corals grow pretty fast and coloring is great, fish are doing great too.

I know you must not chase a pH number but I suspect this is too low and I need to do something else...

What would help most?

Combine this regime with dosing pH rising 2 part?

Larger calcium reactor?

Larger pump on my calcium reactor?

Second chamber for calcium reactor?

Chaeto reactor?

Boron dosing?

Or just let it be that low?

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 6, 2018

Not boron dosing, for sure.

Just to get off on the right track, how are you measuring pH and have you recently calibrated it?

have you tried my aeration tests?

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

The Aeration Test

Some of the possible causes of low pH listed above require an effort to diagnose. Problems 3 and 4 are quite common, and here is a way to distinguish them. Remove a cup of tank water and measure its pH. Then aerate it for an hour with an airstone using outside air. Its pH should rise if it is unusually low for the measured alkalinity (Figure 2). Then repeat the same experiment on a new cup of water using inside air. If its pH also rises, then the aquarium’s pH will rise simply with more aeration because it is only the aquarium that contains excess carbon dioxide. If the pH does not rise in the cup (or rises very little) when aerating with indoor air, then that air likely contains excess CO2, and more aeration with that same air will not solve the low pH problem (although aeration with fresher air should). Be careful implementing this test if the outside aeration test results in a large temperature change (more than 5°C or 10°F), because such changes alone impact pH measurements.

Acorral · May 6, 2018

Thanks Randy

I measure it using a pH probe on my apex, calibrated it 10 months ago, will calibrate again to be sure...

Have tried using outside air to the skimmer through a 3/8 rigid tubing to the outside of the house like 10 meters away (30ft) and there was no difference...

Will do the aereation test and be back to comment... I'm on travel so it will be in a few days...

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 6, 2018

10 months is a long time if you have an unusual pH reading.

BlakeGPS · May 6, 2018

Your Tank is Gorgeous. I have a small 29 Gallon Nano cube and had a low PH Problem. I tried Marine buffer which brought my ph up to normal after 1 week dosing. Been holding well for a month now. I see you tried the outside air line and yes i have heard much success in that method . Best regards

ecreef · May 11, 2018

Acorral · May 11, 2018

I calibrated the probe and made the aereation test...

Uncalibrated it measured 7.64, after calibration 7.86, way better...

Aereation in a glass of water for 1 hour inside the house a couple feet away from the tank it jumped to 7.88.

After aereation outside it climbed to 8.01

I can see now that perhaps better aereation will improve things, but still nothing near the theoretical goal of 8.3...

Is there anything I can do to improve it? Is it normal after that much aereation for it to barely hit 8?

Deereefer · May 11, 2018

If everything is thriving I would leave it alone. My fear is the ph rebound with dosing. Unless you have a lot of patience and time to fine tune it at the beginning.

Acorral · May 11, 2018

BlakeGPS said:
Your Tank is Gorgeous. I have a small 29 Gallon Nano cube and had a low PH Problem. I tried Marine buffer which brought my ph up to normal after 1 week dosing. Been holding well for a month now. I see you tried the outside air line and yes i have heard much success in that method . Best regards

Thanks

Marine Buffer from Seachem is what you used?

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 11, 2018

Seachem Marine Buffer is a very poor choice in a low pH problem situation.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 11, 2018

If you need alk, and If you want to get the most pH boost you can per unit of alk added, the best choice is hydroxide, either DIY or hobby brands. Second best choice with half the pH boost is carbonate. Products like Marine Buffer do not do much to raise pH.

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 11, 2018

Acorral said:
I calibrated the probe and made the aereation test...

Uncalibrated it measured 7.64, after calibration 7.86, way better...

Aereation in a glass of water for 1 hour inside the house a couple feet away from the tank it jumped to 7.88.

After aereation outside it climbed to 8.01

I can see now that perhaps better aereation will improve things, but still nothing near the theoretical goal of 8.3...

Is there anything I can do to improve it? Is it normal after that much aereation for it to barely hit 8?

I’m not sure how high your alk is, but pH 8.1-8.2 is expected for aeration with outside at using NSW, not 8.3.

kevin_e · May 11, 2018

I'm experiencing a similar issue. I added a chamber of soda lime that is fed by outside air into my skimmer. My pH was running anywhere from 7.48 on the low end to 7.78 on the high end before I made changes.

I not run 7.88-8.17, depending on how many and how long we are home. It seems to average out around 8.0. I plan to runs a reverse fuge light cycle to hopefully pump the average up to 8.1, bottoming out closer to 8.0.

CO2 from 3 dogs and two people in a tightly closed 1200 sq ft place has quite the impact on pH.

DesertReefT4r · May 12, 2018

Randy is making solid points here. He is the master when ot comes to all thinh reef chemistry. Your CaRx is not helping with your ph since they are well known to lower ph, so my guess is you are fighting that. I see you already dose kalk which helps increase ph. Im sure you know all this but here are some tips to help increase ph. Run intake for skimmer air outside to pull in fresh O2 rich air, CO2 scrubber, reverse light fuge helps ro stabilize ph algae removes CO2 and adds O2 back to the water, increase surface agitation.

BlakeGPS · May 20, 2018

Acorral said:
Thanks

Marine Buffer from Seachem is what you used?

yes sir

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 20, 2018

BlakeGPS said:
yes sir

Please do not just accept that this is the best answer to a pH problem.

kevin_e · May 20, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Please do not just accept that this is the best answer to a pH problem.

I concur. I'm comfortable saying that it is probably the worst.

BlakeGPS · May 20, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
If you need alk, and If you want to get the most pH boost you can per unit of alk added, the best choice is hydroxide, either DIY or hobby brands. Second best choice with half the pH boost is carbonate. Products like Marine Buffer do not do much to raise pH.

With all Due respect. I disagree and i'm very pleased @ The results useing Marine buffer which raises PH and maitains ph to 8.3 . To each there own.

kevin_e · May 20, 2018

BlakeGPS said:
With all Due respect. I disagree and i'm very pleased @ The results useing Marine buffer which raises PH and maitains ph to 8.3 . To each there own.

If you aren't yet, you will likely struggle with the chemical imbalance that typically comes with buffers. It's not a great method got maintaining pH.

BlakeGPS · May 20, 2018

kevin_e said:
If you aren't yet, you will likely struggle with the chemical imbalance that typically comes with buffers. It's not a great method got maintaining pH.

Almost 1 month latter, PH is good & Holding.