Ph issues

Roadie4life · Aug 14, 2016

Hello,
My tank is 2 month old, 55gallon top fin, cascade canister filter (3 chambers), powered, live rock, live sand, I am using coral pro salt.
I am also making my own ro/di water from spectrapure. When I check my water before putting it into the tank the ph is at 8.3... After an hour of being in the tank the ph remains at 8.3. Within 24 hours the ph drops to 7.8. I use marine buffer to bring it back and again within 24hours it drops back down to 7.8.
Any suggestions on what is happening and what I can do to permanently solve this issue?

Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-0

Thanks and any more information I can give please feel free to ask
Ty

Drakonis · Aug 14, 2016

Id start by taking a vup of water at 7.8 and put it outside with a airstone bubbling in it for a hour. if the PH comes back up you have high CO2 in your home

Roadie4life · Aug 14, 2016

Thanks, I will give it a shot in the morning.

Waters · Aug 15, 2016

I would start by not using a PH buffer.....a PH of 7.8 isn't horrible as long as it remains steady. Going up and down between 7.8 and 8.3 is worse. There are ways to increase it depending on the cause but a lot of times it isn't even necessary.

Roadie4life · Aug 15, 2016

Oh... I thought you had to have a ph around 8.3 for corals to survive. If 7.8 - 8.0 is sufficient then I will leave it as is. As of right now I put an aerator in the tank and the ph came up a little bit, around 8.0 for having it in there for half a day.
Again thank you for the replies

tomtom2245 · Aug 15, 2016

Aeration is the easiest way I've found to bring it up. Mine was running in the 8.0 range until I installed my skimmer and now it's in the 8.3 range constantly.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Aug 15, 2016

Roadie4life said:
Oh... I thought you had to have a ph around 8.3 for corals to survive. If 7.8 - 8.0 is sufficient then I will leave it as is. As of right now I put an aerator in the tank and the ph came up a little bit, around 8.0 for having it in there for half a day.
Again thank you for the replies

Wonderful reef tanks have pH between about pH 7.8 and 8.5. Higher pH may lead to faster hard coral growth, but tanks at pH 7.8 do fine.

I discuss pH here:

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