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TRUKINGNY

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Ok so I tested my alk and it's 6 dkh I know that's kinda low but to tell you guys the truth since I've had my tank which is 4 months now I've never went pass 8 dkh any one have any ideas on this thx for the input guys


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KathyC

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I'm rather surprised that so many folks don't realize what a closed up house (with people in it) will do to a PH reading! It's good that this thread came up :)


As far as the Alk, ESV is a very well balanced salt. Instead of trying to buffer your Alk, I'd do a water change and see where the level goes :) You could also test the salt mix after you make up a batch, that will tell you whether the issue is with your salt or in your tank (I highly doubt it's the salt in this case).

It would be good to know the bioload of the tank & over feeding could be dragging your Alk down by adding excess nutrients.
 
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TonyHNY

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Low in alk would result in lower buffering abilities. A quick fix would be some water change.

If you have a lot of Calcium demanding animals and in the last 4 months you haven't added a single suppliement, you alk would start going lower and the water buffering ability would decrease.

What if you tank accumulated a lot of debris from overfeeding? The breakdown of the organic waste would contribute to that.

There are alot of chemical reactions happening in our tanks. From the interaction of the animals to the atmosphere. If you are worry so much about the drastic changes, a quick water change would help a lot.

I'll check out the windows tonight and see if that will change my pH :)

BTW, I pumped CO2 in my freshwater planted tank 24hrs. And at night, the ph drops from 6.5 to 6...And that is in low buffered water. The soluability of CO2 isn't exactly great plus the water in the tanks are constantly agitated on the surface...
 
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masterswimmer

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Richie, I also have no doubt that the closed windows with your 'concert seating' had an incredible impact on your system. Now that the situation began to correct itself with the windows being opened and the air exchange in the house I think you can also feel comfortable with your own diagnosis. The fact that you even thought to mention that anomaly means you are becoming 'one' with your system :) Great job.

R
 

Simon Garratt

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Just some thoughts..

Must say that i'm having a hard time believing that lowest ph recording of 7.3, even in a room full of people with all windows closed Id never expect to see a tank run much below 7.85 so i'd seriously consider looking at your pH monitor/probe etc as my gut is telling me here that something isnt right with the readings your getting. (maybe a calibration/probe condition issue or the location within the system where the probe is situated.

If that reading is correct (and verified against a second device) then i'd also be very tempted to test your Po4 levels as I'd expect a good degree of dissolution of bound Po4 from any substrates present and from inside LR where bacerial action drives pH proportionally lower.

As per masterswimmer's comments it helps if you take ph readings at the correct times. To find your highest, you need to take it within the last half hour of your lit period, to get the lowest you need to take it within the last half hour of the unlit period. the difference between the two is the important bit, ie minimising the drift over a 24 hour period and this brings us back to your alkalinity which has a direct affect on how much downward drift there is over the dark period (all other factors considerd ie gas exchange etc).

Idealy you want to be looking somwhere around 8-10 DkH which is a bit higher than NSW but allows a slightly higher margin for gradual depletion between water changes on a smaller volume before it drops below the ideal (as in your case)

Allways rember though that if your looking at water chemistry relative to getting a things stable (especially pH) then you need to know 4 key areas that are all linked. ie Salinity, Calcium,Alkalinity, and Magnesium. individually these perameters mean relatively little unless you combine all 4 to get a better picture.

before you do anything your first port of call is salinity, which needs to be around 35ppt on a true seawater refractometer (or 36.5 if using the more common standard brine refractometers which overead 'true' salinity by 1.5ppt at 35) I pretty much ignore specific gravity these days as its so temperature dependent whereas salinity isnt. Getting the salinity right first, gets all your element levels up around where they should be for testing, so you can then adjust or tweak the main core elements individualy. (ie its no use upping Ca,Mg or alkalinity if your salinity is already low and all other elements are lacking as it will just throw everything seriously out of whack relative to natural seawater).

after you have your salinity correct.

To get Alkalinity up, you first have to have magnesium in the 1300 -1400ppm ball park. With a low magnesium level, you'll struggle to maintain any decent alkalinity level. (a proprietary powderd magnesium addative will usually work well here, but dont increase levels by more than 50ppm per day)

Then work on your alkalinity, getting it up to that ideal 8-10DkH range using sodium bicarb (commonly known as pH buffer, which is a bit confusing as it doesnt actually raise pH, it simply increases your carbonate hardness level which limits pH suppression as already mentioned) but again, dont increase by more than 1 Dkh per day.

Finaly look at your Calcium which wants to be around 420-450ppm relative to alkalinity (you can increae this by using a pure addative like Calcium Chloride) again, raising the level by no more than 50ppm per day.

Water changes will work at balancing things out, but only if what your adding is already correct. If levels in the tank are very low (as in your current alkalinity) it can take alot of water changes to get things back so sometimes its better to manually dose one thing at a time gradually, rather than upsetting the whole system with large influxes of new water each time.

Patience is the key though. so make any changes gradiually and work on one thing at a time over several days or weeks if needs be to give the system and its inhabitants time to adjust to the changes. (as the old saying goes...nothing good happens fast in reefkeeping)

In relation to your current alkalinity reading, this doesnt surprise me at all to be honest. Its very common in the first few months with new systems (especially those using substrates) to suffer a degree of precipitation whilst those substrates chemically stabalise and balance out to the surrounding water. suppression of Alkalinity and some magnesium is very common in such cases.

On the whole, once you have those 4 main perameters in check, 99% of pH issues will dissapear of thier own accord.

Hope this has been of help and good luck.
 
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TRUKINGNY

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Ph update gonna do my water change right now but the lowest the ph went last night was 7.97 it's crazy how so many people in one room can change something in your tank so for now on there's a limit of how many people can be in the room lol thx for all the input guys


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TRUKINGNY

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White Plains
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I'm rather surprised that so many folks don't realize what a closed up house (with people in it) will do to a PH reading! It's good that this thread came up :)


As far as the Alk, ESV is a very well balanced salt. Instead of trying to buffer your Alk, I'd do a water change and see where the level goes :) You could also test the salt mix after you make up a batch, that will tell you whether the issue is with your salt or in your tank (I highly doubt it's the salt in this case).

It would be good to know the bioload of the tank & over feeding could be dragging your Alk down by adding excess nutrients.

so i tested the make up water alk and it was 11dkh so now i know the problem is in my tank... so do a bigger water change or add buffer whats everyones opinion???
 

BZOFIQ

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...

BTW, I pumped CO2 in my freshwater planted tank 24hrs. And at night, the ph drops from 6.5 to 6...And that is in low buffered water. The soluability of CO2 isn't exactly great plus the water in the tanks are constantly agitated on the surface...

People crash planted tanks all the time getting the pH waaaay lower than your reading of 6. You must have plenty of buffer in your setup or a lousy (very ineffective) CO2 injection.
 

TonyHNY

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Not much buffering. I have discus in there using aged tap water with only 22ppm. The water surface is always moving. Unless you have a stale tank with zero movement, then yes, it could crash but at 1 bubble per sec, I still doubt it would...

In our reef tanks, we have constant movement on the surface and CO2 should leave the water easily.



People crash planted tanks all the time getting the pH waaaay lower than your reading of 6. You must have plenty of buffer in your setup or a lousy (very ineffective) CO2 injection.
 

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