We have been testing our pH every couple of days. It was low, around 7.5 the first time we tested it (with our pH test). My fiancee took it to his work and tested it on a pH meter a couple days later and it was 7.9 (this was early in the morning). We have been testing it with our pH kits at home too and it is around 7.9 (at night before we turn off the light). We we’re reading up on it some and saw alkalinity mentioned a lot, so we tested it as well. Our alkalinity was 100ppm which, from what I understand, is low as well.
From reading it seems like 7.9 is now terribly low and won’t kill our fish (obviously because our damsels are still alive) but I am wondering if we should troubleshoot it. Would it be okay for us to take our damsels out and start slowly purchasing our ideal fish? Would it be okay to purchase inverts like snails or is the pH too low for them? Any advice?
Paul’s dead on. Hobby grade test kits are great for wasting time and filling land fills. Also regardless if your husband used the best test kit in the world at work if he doesn’t work 60 seconds from the tank it’s not close enough and the pH could have changed. Until you own a pH meter I wouldn’t worry about it.
5.6dKH is way too low. Try to bring it up 1dKH per day to bring it up to 7 dKH. Some people choose to keep it higher around 8-9dKH, but I would not recommend exceeding 9 until you own a pH probe and have a lot more experience under your belt.
One way to bring your Alkalinity up is to increase the Carbonates in the water using Sodium Carbonate. You can make Sodium Carbonate by cooking Sodium Bicarbonate(baking soda) at 350*F laid out on a baking sheet for 30 minutes. Keep in an air tight container, but don’t let the cops catch you baking chemicals and keeping the white powder in little dime bags.
Just add in that you are using “washing soda”, current alk, desired alk. Only add this power diluted in a gallon of RODI water to your sump away from animals and very slowly. Perhaps 1/4 at a time since you don’t have a pH probe and be very careful.
Would be a very good idea to read up on what Alkalinity is and what effects it in marine aquariums. Brightwell’s book on Marine Chemistry is a very good read. In general reefing terms you can think of Alkalinity as the stability of pH. Low carbonates in the aquarium often are the cause of depleted alkalinity. High Phosphates can increase Alk and stripping them away too fast can drop the Alk too quickly and stress the animals. Too much, too quickly of even a good thing is not good in a marine aquarium. Take your time, adjust things slowly. Read, read, and read some more. Just my opinion and my input. Others will disagree.
IME chasing ph caused a lot of grief… And they’re right about the test kits. True measurements come from a probe, and a properly, and recently calibrated one at that.
Once i focused mainly on alkalinity ( i measure mine with api KH kit) and calcium and magnesium, everything seems to fall in place. My ph will be at 7.9 to 8.0 at night, and 8.2ish by mid-day. thats when i was monitoring it, honestly i haven’t checked my ph in months and months…but i do test my KH, Ca, and Mg quite often. Also i started using the baked baking soda (sodium carbonate ) but now just use plain old baking soda right out of the box. The carbonate version would raise the ph, but it didn’t seem to last that long, so i figure just use the bi-carbonate, and avoid the ph swings.
I keep my KH at 9-10, and add my baking soda with my morning top-off water. and keep the calcium around 420-460.
I’m not saying i’m not interested in ph, there’s just no way to adjust it without directly affecting alkalinity, so why test what you can’t adjust. Unless a kalkwasser drip or reactor is used, then it would be wise to have a ph probe, i tried it when i was using the probe, and a small amount of that in a 125g plus system would raise the ph QUICK. When i feel like dropping $30 bucks on a new probe, i’ll start to watch ph again, and maybe experiment with kalk in my smaller tank.
For starters though i’d do what Jon said and get the alk up, 1dkh a day, and break that into a couple “pours” at a time throughout the day if you have the time…
whats in the tank btw?
Well considering the tank only has damsels in it, and you’re just finished cycling I’d say it would be fine to take the damsels out now, but before adding your desired fish mix up some baking soda with RO water and raise the alkalinity (and thus PH). If there are no animals in the tank when you do it, you don’t have to do it little by little, you can raise PH by a full 1.0 because there’s nothing in the tank to be harmed.
Good bacteria and the health of the “system” could be damaged and set back. If they have been monitoring Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate to make sure the proper bacteria are built up I am sure they don’t want to cause them harm. It’s not really that difficult to slowly increase the dKH and since the tank isn’t likely full of carbonate utilizing life forms the dKH likely won’t drop back down over night.
HOWEVER, if your using a cheap salt this could be the source of some of your chemistry issues. If you test your new salt mix after it’s stirred for 24 hours and find it has the same issues as your tank that may be the best place to start. You can look at buffering your salt to fix the mistakes of the salt manufacturer, but then realize the additional time, energy, and cost and realize you can’t figure out all the minor and trace elements that are also likely depleted or elevated… start with a good salt mix and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and frustration.
[quote=“Gordonious, post:6, topic:4070”]
HOWEVER, if your using a cheap salt this could be the source of some of your chemistry issues. If you test your new salt mix after it’s stirred for 24 hours and find it has the same issues as your tank that may be the best place to start. You can look at buffering your salt to fix the mistakes of the salt manufacturer, but then realize the additional time, energy, and cost and realize you can’t figure out all the minor and trace elements that are also likely depleted or elevated… start with a good salt mix and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and frustration. [/quote]
Good Salt Bad Salt is a discussion in itself. One thing I did learn from all the mistakes I made is that salt good or bad settles. Before you mix a batch use a food grade bucket or old salt bucket and mix the dry up. I had many issues with Alk and pH till I took this simple step
