all is dieing

[Tonyscoots84]

what has the ph level been...

 

[MPISCIOTTI]

was always at 8.1 8.3.. now it is 7.7 8.0

 

[Tonyscoots84]

running a lil low.. :scratch: how is the air movement around the tank/sump room that the tank is in.... (it might help a lil bit)

 

[MPISCIOTTI]

maybe my sand bed it is 5 years old

 

[Tonyscoots84]

could a sand bed influence ph to drop... :scratch:

 

[spykes]

DOod dean everyone AEFWs only affects acros and not the monti's. there should be no reason why your colonies are dying from 7.7PH. what you should be looking at is your alk and ca levels. I've heard from slama that your tank reached to 90 degrees during the hot days. Has your tank been overheated lately? any chance you have high levels of Po4 or been dosing anything?

 

[MPISCIOTTI]

i have been dosing kalk for a long time.. but have not used the same type of kalk i usally use. yes my tank did hit 90 during the heat wave. i forgot to turn on my ac..

 

[kimoyo]

Nice posts everyone.

Mpisciotti,

Get another alk test kit and look at your calc reactor. When your pH gets to around 7.7 CO2 has less of an effect on the pH. Your alk is probably around 3 dkh or 1 meg/l now based on what you said it is usually.

 

[Deanos]

DOod dean everyone AEFWs only affects acros and not the monti's. there should be no reason why your colonies are dying from 7.7PH.

Funny how you heard about his tank reaching 90, but not of me saying his montiporas would be adversely affected by his alkalinity. :scratch:

 

[MPISCIOTTI]

what test should i use i already use salifert. how do i go about rasing my ca and lowering my alk also raise my magnesium..

if i add magnesium will that raise my ca and lower my alk?

 

[MPISCIOTTI]

by the way guys thanks for all the feed back you guys are great

 

[Deanos]

Solving Calcium & Alkalinity Problems

 

[kimoyo]

mpisciotti

Did you add vinegar or soda water to your tank?

pH and alk are related and your two values are way off. For a certain alk value there will be a pH value. That pH value will change depending on how much CO2 you have in your tank.

For you pH to be so low with that high of an alk reading you would have had to dump a huge amount of CO2 into your tank. This is why I asked about the soda water or vinegar.

Its possible that your alk reading might just be wrong. Your salifert test might be malfunctioning and your alk might be extremely low. If you usually keep your alk higher then your calc should be higher also. Alk drops faster than calc so that could go along with the low calc also.

I would verify that alk measurement with another test kit.

 

[reefman]

i'm guessing its a excess co2 problem too. i would move all your corals to another setup n solve this issue b4 all others die. 7.7 ph is an idication something in the water chemistry is out of range. usually low ph is also asso.w/ alk. n hi ca. play it safe n move all your corals out 1st.
another culprit may be toxin. check your equip. for rust n test for copper.

 

[MPISCIOTTI]

problem is i have ino other test kits went to 3 lfs for test kits and not one had any. also wanted to buy more kalkwasser and no one had any so im stuck ...

 

[mshur]

mike,
sorry about ur problem... i have some kalk ,and i am not using it..if u need come by..call me at 917-5898909..
what u need to test,,i have everything)

mike

 

[spykes]

Funny how you heard about his tank reaching 90, but not of me saying his montiporas would be adversely affected by his alkalinity. :scratch:

dean you got it all wrong. :p i said AEFWs dont eat montis

 

[MPISCIOTTI]

i never knew you can add soda water to the tank. what does that do? also what does vinegar do as well..

 

[Deanos]

i never knew you can add soda water to the tank. what does that do? also what does vinegar do as well..

High pH: Causes and Cures

Excerpt: Adding soda water (seltzer = carbon dioxide dissolved in fresh water) or otherwise directly adding carbon dioxide (from a cylinder, by breathing into a skimmer inlet, etc.), will reduce the pH as shown in Figures 5 and 6. In these cases, overshooting is a possibility. In a later section of this article I recommend how much soda water to add. All other methods should be done only with real time pH monitoring to prevent overshooting the target pH.

Excerpt 2: Adding vinegar is another option for reducing pH.