My water quality sucks

salty fish · Nov 10, 2014

My 16 gallon nano reef crashed about two months ago and ever since then I've had trouble getting my pH right. I have an RO/DI system and the water that I get out of it has a pH of 8.6 recently put a ph buffer in it. Proper PH by API is the name, it put my ph up to 9.2 not 8.2 so then I tried acid buffer which brought my ph down but now it looks like I dumped a gallon of milk in my aquarium, what do other people used to balance their pH.

143MPCo · Nov 11, 2014

Don't chase PH... (see link below) what are the other water parameters at?

Don't chase the pH | Melev's Reef

salty fish · Nov 11, 2014

The other parameters are perfect.

143MPCo · Nov 11, 2014

salty fish said:
The other parameters are perfect.

It's hard to say, or generate a reason without a little more information on the tank... smaller volumes of water have away of being a little bit more challenging when trying to keep them stable.

cagdason · Nov 11, 2014

Blance your KH around 8-10 dKh then you will be OK don't worry about the pH. What are you using to measure it anyways? Most are not very good.

RacinRevo0818 · Nov 11, 2014

I did the same thing when I first started. Ph is just a rough guideline and you should never use a buffer or anything to change ph. All those products with change your all levels drastically. Kalk is usually your friend for ph but don't even worry about it yet. I would just do a couple water changes as normal and do nothing to change ph. Also depending on what your checking ph with you will see a change thru out the day so best advice get your other parameters right and check those and you will be fine.

salty fish · Nov 11, 2014

I use a digital ph tester, and thank you guys for the help

AZDesertRat · Nov 11, 2014

You cannot measure the pH of RO/DI water, it is meaningless. There are too few ions to measure so consider the RO/DI pH to be neutral. Your salt mix should bring the pH where it needs to be without any buffers and for top off the amounts of water you are adding should be so minimal it will have no effect on the tanks pH. It will quickly take on the characterisics of the tank water.
I don't worry about pH, it is what it is as as the system matures it takes care of itself.

salty fish · Nov 11, 2014

Ok thank you

gemini9 · Nov 11, 2014

salty fish said:
My 16 gallon nano reef crashed about two months ago and ever since then I've had trouble getting my pH right. I have an RO/DI system and the water that I get out of it has a pH of 8.6 recently put a ph buffer in it. Proper PH by API is the name, it put my ph up to 9.2 not 8.2 so then I tried acid buffer which brought my ph down but now it looks like I dumped a gallon of milk in my aquarium, what do other people used to balance their pH.

I put Proper PH in once and the next day my Coral Beauty Angel fish died.