Ph low, added Malawi buffer!

[ChristieM]

I was doing all my water testing/changes tonight and in the midst mixed up my Malawi buffer (for my cichlid tanks) with my marine buffer. I added it to my 20g SW tank and my 10g quarantine tank as the PH in both tanks was a little low. I figured out the mistake before I added marine buffer to the cichlid tanks but now I’m worried about my SW fish!! HELP! Anyone effed up like this before?

 

[Tamberav]

Typically you don’t want to just dose buffer to maintain pH in a reef environment as the effect is temporary.

I certainly can’t see any reason to buffer a QT or FO tank. You may want to do more research on pH in a marine environment and dosing and the effects and potential swings and alkalinity. It could have some pretty negative effects on a reef and probably not any real reason to dose it on a fish only.

I doubt it did anything different unless dosage was really off. It will raise your alk though but so do most marine buffers.

 

[ChristieM]

I have fish only tanks. My LFS advised em that PH should be around 8.2 or so and to use the marine buffer to raise PH up slowly. Is this the wrong advice? The one thing I can’t seem to wrap my head around in the hobby is that every single person has different advice, names for fish, etc etc. What is a good way to maintain PH if not the marine buffer?

 

[Tamberav]

I have fish only tanks. My LFS advised em that PH should be around 8.2 or so and to use the marine buffer to raise PH up slowly. Is this the wrong advice? The one thing I can’t seem to wrap my head around in the hobby is that every single person has different advice, names for fish, etc etc. What is a good way to maintain PH if not the marine buffer?

You do not need to worry about pH in a fish only tank and even on reef tanks it is not a big deal unless chasing growth. I have a pH probe that came with my apex on my 80 and I never do anything about it in 10 years. I never test my frag tank for pH.

Some ways to safely increase pH is running the skimmer line outside/out a window since a house is full of CO2, running a refugium on the opposite cycle of the tank or using a CO2 scrubber. On a reef tank that uses up alkalinity/calcium... one can use kalkwasser slow drip as well.

It is not an advisable way to chase pH. So yes, the LFS gave poor advise IMO.

The big take away is marine buffer is a temporary effect which means chasing pH which effects your alk and also causes swings with the chase. You don’t need to correct your pH or even test for it.

Recent thread I found on search function echos the same thing.

Marine buffer by SeaChem

Question- My PH is 7.4 and I have corals and fish. Will it hurt to add a little Marine Buffer by Seachem?

www.reef2reef.com

 

[jpnegrete14]

I have fish only tanks. My LFS advised em that PH should be around 8.2 or so and to use the marine buffer to raise PH up slowly. Is this the wrong advice? The one thing I can’t seem to wrap my head around in the hobby is that every single person has different advice, names for fish, etc etc. What is a good way to maintain PH if not the marine buffer?

Others will chime in but IME the stability of your ph is far more important than trying to achieve that 8.2 or 8.3 I certainly would advise against using a buffer to achieve it. You’ll constantly be chasing a ph your artificially inflating temporarily.

Honestly FO tanks just need the fundamentals. use ro/di water when making your saltwater, stick to your scheduled water changes, don’t over feed, provide adequate flow that breaks that waters surface and your FO tank will be doing fine. Once you get the husbandry down you can just put that ph test kit away. And certainly don’t waste your money on buffers.

 

[ChristieM]

Others will chime in but IME the stability of your ph is far more important than trying to achieve that 8.2 or 8.3 I certainly would advise against using a buffer to achieve it. You’ll constantly be chasing a ph your artificially inflating temporarily.

Honestly FO tanks just need the fundamentals. use ro/di water when making your saltwater, stick to your scheduled water changes, don’t over feed, provide adequate flow that breaks that waters surface and your FO tank will be doing fine. Once you get the husbandry down you can just put that ph test kit away. And certainly don’t waste your money on buffers.

Thank you for the advice. Like I said, everyone has different advice, especially at my LFSs! I followed their advice because I didn’t have anyone else, at the time, to get advice from. I’m glad I found this forum! I will leave the PH alone from now on! Thanks again.

 

[jpnegrete14]

So none of us have actually addressed your emergency. I apologize. I can’t imagine the active ingredients for a freshwater buffer being drastically different than a saltwater buffer. I could be wrong. But I don’t think accidentally switching them is a huge deal. If you want a little peace of mind you can always do a 10% water change and just monitor the behavior of the fish.

10% is a safe bet when you’re just being proactive and don’t really know if there is a negative impact from what just happened. I would NOT go over 10% tho.

 

[jpnegrete14]

My bad I see Tamberav did address it in the end of the first post!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It would be helpful to know the brand, but in general, Malawi buffers for a one time dose are fine and no concern.

Seachem's product, for example, is (by their description) just a mix of carbonate salts, as are most reef alkalinity supplements. It is probably a mix of sodum and potassium bicarbonate and/or carbonate.

 

[Pdash]

Thank you for the advice. Like I said, everyone has different advice, especially at my LFSs! I followed their advice because I didn’t have anyone else, at the time, to get advice from. I’m glad I found this forum! I will leave the PH alone from now on! Thanks again.

Always remember that your local fish store makes a living selling you stuff. Be skeptical.