Ph Issues In A New Setup

[N1z]

Heya my tank has been running for 3 days, so im using TMC pro reef salt and first impressions is that its naf to some respects.

The PH tested by both liquid and monitor probe is 7.8??

The calcium is 460 and KH is 8. I havent tested magnesium becuase havent got one yet.

Should i add some ph buffer or see if it slowly raises itself. But that just puts doubts in my mind for when i do water changes...?

Any help would be great cheers

 

[Colin_T]

magnesium and calcium aren't going to affect the PH.
It is probably the brand of marine salt you are using. Some need more PH buffer and give you a low PH. Adding some sodium bicarbonate will raise the PH pretty quickly. Shells and limestone rock should also raise the PH above 8.0.
You can also test the PH in the morning before the lights come on, and in the evening a few hours before lights out. If the PH is low in the morning but higher in the evening, then your PH is being affected by low oxygen levels or high carbon dioxide levels. This can be corrected by increasing the surface turbulence.

 

[westiemarble]

Hi,

My tank has only been up and running for 4 months so I'm new at this game. However, I asked the same question during my cycling and was told to forget monitoring the PH during the cycle period (my ph is stuck at 7.8 even months later but that's due to a high CO2 level in my house)
If you have just started your tank's cycle then you should not be thinking of water changes since this will adversely affect your cycle time. As you know you need to let the ammonia levels rise to get the bacteria levels up to deal with it and produce nitrites which in turn are dealt with by other bacteria to produce nitrates and then your cycle is complete when ammonia and nitrites are at zero. Doing water changes will obviously affect this process.

The more experienced will hopefully chip in with their advice but all I can advise is that you monitor closely your ammonia, nitrite and then nitrate levels to observe your tank's cycle process. Once complete with ammonia and nitrite = 0 and nitrates probably >40 you then should carry out a large water change and observe your tank's water parameters for a further week or so before adding CUC.
You should then monitor your calcium, magnesium and alkalinity levels on a regular basis and start the slow process of adding livestock.

Cheers

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

Hey N1z, aerate a cupful of your water with air from outside for a bit then check its ph, as gas central heating and shut windows keeps the ambient c02 in your house high and therefore ph in tank low. Mine drops to 7.8 from this but is cured by the simple addition of a piece of airline tubing from outside to the intake on my skimmer which puts it back to 8.3ish. Those ph buffers are a pain.

johnny

 

[N1z]

Well readin other forums, some one else used pro reef salts and got 7.7ph aswell. Ive got a good surface agitation as i know its the best from of gas exchange. Plus air mixes in my overflow pipes and also in my bubble trap and skimmer.

And my cheato fuge is lit 24/7.

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

Still worth a try though don't cost nothing If you have high c02 in your house you can have as much surface agitation/gas exchange as you like and the c02 content of your water will still be high and ph low. You can even try opening a window next to the tank for a couple of hours and see if it goes up. Well worth a try IMHO(might save you a headache in the long run )

 

[SkiFletch]

Agreed, you can have the best gas exchange in the world in your tank, but if your house is well sealed up for the winter, chances are ambient CO2 is up in the 0.5-1% area, significantly higher than the 0.04% in outside air. Elevated ambient CO2 can easily cause a pH drop of a handful of tenths. I'd agree to try the leaving some water outside trick.

An alkalinity of 8dKH is a little bit low for most captive reef tanks, and adding some buffer would certainly help. However if you do have an ambient CO2 issue, all the buffer in the world won't get you much above 8.0.

Anyway you slice it, slightly depressed pH isn't that big a deal if it you have good gas exchange and thus prevent swings in pH. The swings really get you

 

[Colin_T]

for everyone with high levels of CO2 in their houses, I would suggest you try to open the windows onc4e a day to let some fresh air inside. High levels of CO2 cause problems to people, animals and fish. Long term exposure to high levels could adversly affect your health.
And if you have gas heating then you need to have a flu on the heater to prevent Carbon Monoxide from building up as well.
You could try growing some pot plants (Spathyphyllum, etc) inside the house and these will help to lower the CO2 levels during the day.

 

[Crazy fishes]

Don't bother using pH buffers they are absolute waste of time in my opinion. I use Seachem reef salt and dose with Seachem Carbonate raiser; it works beautifully. It is most probably (other than ambient CO2) the low levels of alkalinity in the salt mix. The seachem reef salt mixed to a salinity of 1.026 has a Kh of 12.

Hope that helps

Regards

 

[N1z]

Sorry jonny sounded a bit odd till i read a few other articles on it so sorry m8. And would you know after 2 days of opening to windows its gone up too 8 although i have add more buffer past 2 days. So now my KH is 11 now.


Ill keep opening the windows for new few days to see if it naturally goes up now.

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

No worries N1z

johnny

 

[SkiFletch]

CO2's a nasty one when it comes to pH

 

[N1z]

Welll this morning it was at 7.8 roughly and when i came home about 4pm it was 8.1 so think its better now.

 

[kj23502]

http/reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...05#post14049205

Concentrations of CO2 in the home