High PH 8.62 at Night (Randy)...

wcharon · Sep 23, 2015

Hi Randy and Guys....

I need some advise. I am having problems with the PH at night reaching 8.62 which i prefer to have it to fluctuate between 8.1 and 8.4 the most.

I am using for ALK Baked Baking Soda and KALK thru my ATO at full strength of 2 TSB per gallon. I know that both rise PH. My evaporation is around 1/2 gallon per day so it is not that much. My Doser has the ATO integrated so i cannot say to it to only use ATO during the day. I was dosing ALK 6 times per 24 hrs and raised it to 12 to have it spread more evenly and it changed slightly.

I am using a new calibrated APEX Lab Grade PH probe and double checked the reading with Salifert test. My house also have Air Conditioner which fluctuates around 73 at night and 77 degrees during the day.

I will like to know which is the best approach in order to improve my PH at night. If i should switch the ALK and use it without baking or should i reduce the strength of the KALK t 1 1/2 strength thru the ATO???

Thanks in advance for jumping in and attached a pic for reference of the graph.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Sep 23, 2015

What is your alkalinity? Lowering it will reduce pH in your system.

If the pH is really that high and alkalinity is less than 12 dKH, more aeration will help lower it.

Perhaps the easiest solutions are to swap normal baking soda for the baked baking soda, and if that effect is not big enough, swap out some or all of the limewater for more of the two part additive.

wcharon · Sep 23, 2015

Thanks Randy.... My ALK is 8.5 - 9.0 , Clacium 415 amd Mg 1400. Should i lower the ALK to 8???

During the day my PH is ok 8.2 - 8.3 and it shifts to 8.62 at night.

Downbeach · Sep 23, 2015

Are you sure of the accuracy of your device? You might try to re-calibrate it. Any possibility of electrical interference from other devices?

wcharon · Sep 23, 2015

The APEX is new and also the Lab Grade PH probe. It was calibrated with new Milwaukee 7 and 10 reagents and also double checked the readings with a Salifert test kit.

I think it is not interference because the day reading is OK. The shift that worries me is at night getting to high. As the house temp at night also goes down i assume it has something to do with it.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Sep 23, 2015

I wouldn't lower that alk level.

Try the baking soda switch first since that is easy and doesn't harm anything even if the pH is lower than measured.

wcharon · Sep 23, 2015

Thanks. I will give that a try and let you know.....

Appreciated.

pickupman66 · Sep 23, 2015

I am fighting the same issue with my system. I have my alkalinity at 9.5Dkh. I switched last month to baking soda from soda ash. the system fluctuates 0.15 daily. but cyclically goes from a low of 8.1 to as high as 8.6.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Sep 23, 2015

pickupman66 said:
I am fighting the same issue with my system. I have my alkalinity at 9.5Dkh. I switched last month to baking soda from soda ash. the system fluctuates 0.15 daily. but cyclically goes from a low of 8.1 to as high as 8.6.

IMO, that cyclic variation is likely test error. Out of many, many threads on high pH, I've never seen a tank that the pH got too high without using limewater. All of the others were test errors of one sort or another. I think folks can take it as a rule that unless you are using high pH additives (limewater, etc.), pH is never actually too high in an established and aerated reef tank, regardless of what a test might read.

pickupman66 · Sep 23, 2015

Hmmm.. I have three seperate PH probes. Maybe I need some new calibration solution and to re-calibrate them. I dont do anyting for the PH and only make adjustments based upon the Alkalinity of the water. I do monitor the trends of it to see how large the swings may be etc...

Randy Holmes-Farley · Sep 23, 2015

pickupman66 said:
Hmmm.. I have three seperate PH probes. Maybe I need some new calibration solution and to re-calibrate them. I dont do anyting for the PH and only make adjustments based upon the Alkalinity of the water. I do monitor the trends of it to see how large the swings may be etc...

New solutions would be a good plan, but in general, pH isn't a problem for most people and many people do not even measure it.

wcharon · Sep 24, 2015

Well just to keep everybody updated.

I made a change yesterday to my Chiller where i bumped the temp .5 degrees from 79.5 to 80 and it seems to make a change to the PH readings. Here is the graph where it didn't pass 8.29 and also the Temp is more stable as you see in the graph.

So in resume, it had to be a mixture and correlation of the temp and evaporation at night time.

Thanks for all the help in getting this up.

wcharon · Sep 29, 2015

Good Morning and Good News...

To keep updated i have switched from Baked Baking Soda to regular Baking Soda and my PH has stabilize a lot. The parameters fluctuations has been from 8.19 thru 8.5 the most as shown in the graph in the past days from 8.62.

Will keep an eye to see how it goes but next step will be to lower a little the strength of the KALK thru ATO to see if i can lower it a little more to something around 8.4.

Thanks for all the advise.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Sep 29, 2015

Sounds good.

Good luck with it.

wcharon · Oct 19, 2015

Good Morning Randy and Team...

After several weeks routing your recommendations i have stabilized the tank and now my PH fluctuates between 8.0 and 8.35 / 8.4. My Alk is 7.8 and Calc. 4.25 which i thing it's great. These parameters were reached lowering the Kalk thru ATO to 1 1/4 tbs per gal. and using 40ml of 2 part with Baking Soda and BRS Calcium.

As every of us want to best for our tanks i will like another recommendation from your part if possible.

1. Should i keep using 2 part and Kalk the way i am using it???
2. Should i increase the use of Kalk thru ATO avoiding the PH spike (8.45 / 8.5) get up a little bit and use less 2 part?
3. Should i change the ATO with Kalk method to achieve more stable parameters and use my Doser to dose the Kalk???

I have a 5 head doser with ATO included so i cannot use the APEX to develop Kalk with the PH reading and will really like to avoid dependencies on equipment in case of failure but will approach your recommendations and expertise.

Thanks once again...