Very low PH

Jen_h · Dec 19, 2018

@Randy Holmes-Farley
I’ve been having very low Ph. It’s bounces between 7.3 to 7.4 during the day and at night. Won’t go higher then 7.5
At first I thought I needed to buy a new Ph probe. Bought a brand new one, calibrated it and same thing.
My skimmer is running efficiently. I’ve open windows on numerous occasions and still nothing.
I dose brs 2 part, soda ash for kalk and calcium chloride for calcium.
My parameters are pretty steady
Sg 1.024
Kh 7.8
Calcium 420
Phosphate 0.00
Nitrate 5
I haven’t tested mag yet.
I run a refuguim, bio pellets, uv sterilizer and gfo.
Fish and coral are great no problems. Corals consist of mostly acro frags and have a couple high end nems in the tank as well.
I ordered a co2 scrubber to help as well.
I’m just baffled on why my PH is so low and why even with fresh air it’s still won’t budge.
Just wanted to hear your thought on what possibly is going on, thanks!

Saluqui · Dec 19, 2018

What size tank?

Mical · Dec 19, 2018

For one your salinity is a little low but not drastic.Aim for 1.026 KH is also low (for my tastes - I try to keep my KH between 8-9)

Jen_h · Dec 19, 2018

Saluqui said:
What size tank?

It’s a Red Sea reefer 350, around 95 gallons total water volume

Oldreefer44 · Dec 19, 2018

I had the same issue. Run a co2 scrubber and have an air pump feeding an air stone from outside. Finally solved the issue.

Jen_h · Dec 19, 2018

Mical said:
For one your salinity is a little low but not drastic.Aim for 1.026 KH is also low (for my tastes - I try to keep my KH between 8-9)

I try to keep as close to seawater as possible since running bio pellets. Usually my salinity is 1.025.

Jen_h · Dec 19, 2018

OLDREEFER44 said:
I had the same issue. Run a co2 scrubber and have an air pump feeding an air stone from outside. Finally solved the issue.

I just ordered a co2 scrubber from brs it will be here Friday. Where do you put the air stone? I tried putting it in the sump so I didn’t have to deal with salt spray in the tank and really didn’t do much. Maybe with the combination of the 2 like you said will though. I’ll find out Friday

maevepotter · Dec 19, 2018

Try a fan in front of the window blowing air in. This worked for me.

flooddc · Dec 19, 2018

Jen_h said:
Fish and coral are great no problems. Corals consist of mostly acro frags and have a couple high end nems in the tank as well.

Why chase # if everything are great? I'd not mess around or try to change if livestocks are doing well.

Auto-pilot · Dec 19, 2018

Ok my question for you guys is can you just use Lye or sodium hydroxide in order to break the bonds of the carbonic acid?? Co2 creates an acid that lowers the PH, if you add baking soda or carbonate the PH will go up but also the alkalinity which might not be desired. Could you just use Lye to disociate the carbonic acid and not effect anything else???

Jen_h · Dec 19, 2018

maevepotter said:
Try a fan in front of the window blowing air in. This worked for me.

I’ll definitely give that a shot as well!

Coralsea_co · Dec 19, 2018

Jen_h said:
@Randy Holmes-Farley
I’ve been having very low Ph. It’s bounces between 7.3 to 7.4 during the day and at night. Won’t go higher then 7.5
At first I thought I needed to buy a new Ph probe. Bought a brand new one, calibrated it and same thing.
My skimmer is running efficiently. I’ve open windows on numerous occasions and still nothing.
I dose brs 2 part, soda ash for kalk and calcium chloride for calcium.
My parameters are pretty steady
Sg 1.024
Kh 7.8
Calcium 420
Phosphate 0.00
Nitrate 5
I haven’t tested mag yet.
I run a refuguim, bio pellets, uv sterilizer and gfo.
Fish and coral are great no problems. Corals consist of mostly acro frags and have a couple high end nems in the tank as well.
I ordered a co2 scrubber to help as well.
I’m just baffled on why my PH is so low and why even with fresh air it’s still won’t budge.
Just wanted to hear your thought on what possibly is going on, thanks!

soda ash for kalk ? Or Alk

Replace calcium chloride with kalkwasser.

maevepotter offered a good suggestion.

Jen_h · Dec 19, 2018

flooddc said:
Why chase # if everything are great? I'd not mess around or try to change if livestocks are doing well.

I definitely agree and know I should leave it alone but that little voice inside me is nagging about how low Ph can really impact your tank.

Brew12 · Dec 19, 2018

Jen_h said:
That’s how i feel but when you read about how low ph can potentially impact your reef tank

I definitely

I definitely agree and know I should leave it alone but that little voice inside me is nagging about how low Ph can really impact your tank.

Have you done a fresh air test? Take a sample of tank water outside and either run an air stone in it for a few minutes or whisk it up with a fork for a minute or two. Then take it inside and put your pH probe in the sample. If it doesn't read above 8.2 your probe isn't reading correctly.

Jen_h · Dec 19, 2018

Coralsea_co said:
soda ash for kalk ? Or Alk

Replace calcium chloride with kalkwasser.

maevepotter offered a good suggestion.

Whoops meant soda ash for alk! Kalk was a pain for me, I go through a lot of top off water through my ato. So got tired of filling and mixing, filling and mixing. Rather use the dosing pumps with brs 2 part.

Jen_h · Dec 19, 2018

Brew12 said:
Have you done a fresh air test? Take a sample of tank water outside and either run an air stone in it for a few minutes or whisk it up with a fork for a minute or two. Then take it inside and put your pH probe in the sample. If it doesn't read above 8.2 your probe isn't reading correctly.

Haven’t tried that but I will when I get home tonight!

Brew12 · Dec 19, 2018

Jen_h said:
Whoops meant soda ash for alk! Kalk was a pain for me, I go through a lot of top off water through my ato. So got tired of filling and mixing, filling and mixing. Rather use the dosing pumps with brs 2 part.

I dose Kalk and BRS 2-part. More consistent addition than using kalk in an ATO and easier to handle refilling.

declanisadog · Dec 19, 2018

Auto-pilot said:
Ok my question for you guys is can you just use Lye or sodium hydroxide in order to break the bonds of the carbonic acid?? Co2 creates an acid that lowers the PH, if you add baking soda or carbonate the PH will go up but also the alkalinity which might not be desired. Could you just use Lye to disociate the carbonic acid and not effect anything else???

Good question. I've always wondered this about lye. I have used in my tank before to eliminate aptasia and nuisance corals, and the PH boost you get from a tiny amount is noteworthy.

Jen_h · Dec 19, 2018

Brew12 said:
I dose Kalk and BRS 2-part. More consistent addition than using kalk in an ATO and easier to handle refilling.

How do you dose the kalk and the 2 part? I only knew how to do it through the ato. May be better then trying to run the co2 scrubber cause I heard you burn through a lot of media and it gets expensive real quick.

Brew12 · Dec 19, 2018

Jen_h said:
How do you dose the kalk and the 2 part? I only knew how to do it through the ato. May be better then trying to run the co2 scrubber cause I heard you burn through a lot of media and it gets expensive real quick.

I tried a CO2 scrubber at one point and didn't like it. It worked, but would have been very expensive to maintain and was labor intensive. Media needs to be changed out very regularly. Sometimes in under a week.

I mix up fully saturated kalkwasser in a 5g container and dose 1400mL per day spread out over 70 doses. That isn't enough to make up for all my alk/calc demand so I dose the remainder using BRS 2-part. Adding that much volume in kalkwasser also means less demand on my ATO system so it goes longer without needing to be refilled.