PH I need help please!!!!

ryan paggi · Dec 18, 2015

I am having a major issue trying to get my pH up to 8.3 my pH is 7.50 my ALK is 12 my CA is 450 MG is 1400 and my No3 is 10 I have an outside airline going directly to my air intake on my protein skimmer and I can't get my pH to go up I tested the pH of my RO water and it is 7.2. I tested my normal well water and it is 8.5 should I be using my well water to mix my salt with instead of RO water otherwise I don't know how to get my pH up. I am using Kalc water as my top off water. It's been this way for a while and Mike corals are really starting to suffer from it all my other parameters are good it's a 30 gallon system and I've been doing a 5 gallon water change every week. Please help me figure it out

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 18, 2015

The pH of the RO/DI water is totally unimportant to the tank pH.

How are you measuring pH?

Tank pH at 7.5 is a concern, but I'm skeptical that it is real.

ryan paggi · Dec 18, 2015

I'm sorry I completely forgot that part. I had an off brand oh checker and had no problems with it then I started noticing that it was getting low about 2 months ago so I got a new Hanna checker and recalibrate it and it's been at 7.50 for a while and I had posted this topic before and we thought it was due to not having enough fresh air so I ran a 3/8 airtube directly from outside into the inlet of my bubble king skimmer and have watched it for three weeks and I've had no rise in ph

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 19, 2015

I don't think the pH 7.5 is likely to be accurate. How did you calibrate the meter? Did it read the calibration solutions correctly after calibration?

ryan paggi · Dec 19, 2015

Yea I used the 7.0 solution first and let it sit for about 10 min then rinsed it in RO water and then put it in the 4.0 solution and dud if this same and then put it in the tank and it's reading 7.5

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 19, 2015

If you still have those solutions, try just measuring them and see what you get.

You can also check the meter in borax, or you can aerate the tank water in outdoor and indoor air to gauge the pH changes.

These are discussed here:

Borax:
http://web.archive.org/web/20021015005420/www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/2000/feb/bio/default.asp

The aeration test:

Low pH: Causes and Cures
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rhf/index.htm

from it:

The Aeration Test

Some of the possibilities listed above require some 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 the pH. Then aerate it for an hour with an airstone using outside air. The pH should rise if the pH is unusually low for the measured alkalinity, as in Figure 3 (if it does not rise, most likely one of the measurements (pH or alkalinity) is in error). Then repeat the same experiment on a new cup of water using inside air. If the pH rises there too, then the aquarium pH will rise with more aeration because it is only the aquarium that contains excess carbon dioxide. If the pH does not rise inside (or rises very little), then the inside air contains excess CO2, and more aeration with that same air will not solve the low pH problem (although aeration with fresher air should).