PH STEADLY FALLING FOR DAYS

underwaterdan · Oct 25, 2015

My PH has been falling over the past few days and I do not know why.... Can anyone advise? I have added 2 new fish but I have not had any change in ammonia nitrate or nitrite.
I have a fuge light that I put on at night as well.
I hope this isn't the start to a crash or something. Above is my temp and PH on the same graph, I am guessing maybe something to do with TEMP that's why I posted this.

Steadily, typo in the title and can't change it.

TD13 · Oct 25, 2015

Are you dosing anything?

underwaterdan · Oct 25, 2015

No. Not dosing.

FloatingFish · Oct 25, 2015

Check your alk

DFW · Oct 25, 2015

The pH shows to be at an acceptable level. You should, however, monitor calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium, and keep those levels in range. pH will ok if those are right. pH will go down if the house is stuffy. Opening the windows will cause the pH to go up. It's a carbon dioxide thing.

FlyinBryan · Oct 25, 2015

Use kalkwasser, if you haven't, seriously, you're missing out.

Sabellafella · Oct 25, 2015

Oxygen related issue open a window

shoelaceike · Oct 25, 2015

Do you use UV?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 26, 2015

Relax.

Those values (7.97 to 8.27) are all perfectly fine and there's no reason to do anything specifically about the pH. Assuming I am reading this graph correctly, it has only actually been falling for the past day. Otherwise, it has been swinging up and down each day/night, as it should.

As folks have mentioned, alkalinity is a prime thing to monitor, and if you let alkalinity get too low, the pH will begin to decline.

My most recent pH article will come out in a few days at Reef Edition, but in the meantime, this may be helpful:

The “How To” Guide to Reef Aquarium Chemistry for Beginners Part 3: pH by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-05/rhf/index.php

underwaterdan · Oct 26, 2015

Ok thank you. Somehow it is back up this am to 8.1, meaning it actually went up at night! I'm going to start monitoring alkalinity and possibly start to use kalkwasher.
Thanks for everyone's help. I'm learning a lot of new stuff everyday

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 26, 2015

underwaterdan said:
Ok thank you. Somehow it is back up this am to 8.1, meaning it actually went up at night! I'm going to start monitoring alkalinity and possibly start to use kalkwasher.
Thanks for everyone's help. I'm learning a lot of new stuff everyday

The CO2 in your home air is also a big driver of pH. So a lot of people in a room with a tank, like a party, for example, has been known to drive the pH down unusually far.