How To Control Ph

[stefday]

My current pH is 7.8 at night but only increases to 7.9 in the day.

I have good surface agitation and do 10-20% water changes weekly.

I have read that the level should be 8.1-8.4 but have also read that it is more important to keep levels steady.

What do other people do to increase and maintain higher pH levels?

 

[ballo1000]

What substrate do you have? How much live rock? How much caulerpa etc? Do you mix your own salt? if so have you checked the pH of the r.o.water? I had a problem that was traced back to excess grape caulerpa, at night the co2 given off was causing a big dip in pH. I used a buffer to inrease the pH and removed the caulerpa. It now stays fairly steady. What are you using to check it as the digital meters are the mosr accurate but do need calibrating fairly often. The liquid ones can be very unreliable.

 

[stefday]

Thanks.

I currently have live sand and approximately 80 to 90 llb of live rock. I do not have any Caulerpa at present.
I currently buy my ro from a lfs and it is 8.2. I have a digital meter and calibrate it fairly often.

I have been using a buffer which increases the pH to 8.0 to 8.1 but it then seems to revert back to 7.9.

Took some readings this morning and nitrate was 10, nitrite o, magnesium 1100, calcium 480 and kh 16.

 

[ben1987]

are you using a calcium reactor?

 

[stefday]

Not at the moment but thinking of adding one. Put a thread on hardware looking for advice on this.

kh had been quite steady at 10 and magnesium at about 1500. Would this change affect the pH?