Increase PH?

[uriah]

Hey guys and gals:shades: I need a little help. My PH is at 7.8 and wondering if anyone knows how to increase or what affect it would have on existing livestock.

CA 480-500
KH 195-210
NO, NH & PO all 0
Salinity 1.023
Just did a 10 gallon change on my 55g

Thanks for your help!

[JimD]

What time of day/night are you taking the reading?

[uriah]

around 5pm CST. Took two readings just to be sure, same thing...

[Texreefer]

is the 195-200 reading PPM since your expressing in KH? if so that roughly 11dkh or 4 Meq/L. those #s are getting close to being too high. I would guess your Mg is a little on the low side and some precipitation as a result of this imbalance is cause a reduction in Oxygen in your tank which in turn will affect your ph,, use the online calculater in the do it yourself forum if you want to dose a bit of baking soda to help with the Ph, but regular water changes, some extra water aggitation at the surface and maybe the addition of some magnesium should help solve your ph problem.

[uriah]

You are correct in you assertion that my alkalinity is high and your assumption that I was reffering to PPM. I dosed about 6 oz of magnesium last week. If reg water changes and magnesium will help, that would be the easiest route, but would the low ph significantly impact my coral growth or have any other negative affect on my livestock?

[JoshOdphi]

yea low ph can significantly impact coral growth and can also kill ur fish.....my ph had dropped to about 7.6 n killed some of my livestock......theres some ph buffer u can buy at an lfs....thas wut i did....everything returned to normal...all other parameters were not affected...

[uriah]

I am going to test it again in the morning and go from there. The ph tends to fluctuate and drop at night...

[JoshOdphi]

yea run it again c where ur at....if u still need that buffer then go ahead and add some...its pretty cheap anyways....i keep it jus in case anything causes my ph to drop

[ballardjr2000]

Your PH will be the lowest before you kick your lights on in the morning. and the highest before lights out. also a quick cheap way to raise PH baking soda

[JoshOdphi]

oops...thas right baking soda will do tha trick...ur right jon..i keep forgettin...

[Bill S]

baking soda will do tha trick

Actually, you do NOT want baking soda. Baking soda will LOWER your pH, in many instances. It's pH is around 7.8-8.0.

And, it will raise your alkalinity.

What WILL raise your pH and your alkalinity is anhydrous baking soda: Put box of baking soda into a baking dish (very clean), and put it in the oven for an hour at 350 degrees. This drives off the CO2 - which ist what lowers your pH - and make sodium bicarbonate into sodium carbonate. I take a box of this and put it in a 3 liter bottle of RO/DI water, and dose with it. The pH of sodium carbonate (anhydrous sodium bicarbonate) is 11.6 - and pH is a logorithmic scale (10 is 10x what 9 is).

This is a great link: http://jdieck1.home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chemcalc.html

I'd guess your biggest problem is too much CO2 OR a bad test kit - either pH or Alkalinity. As one who chased an Alk problem a few years ago because of a bad kit, HAVE SOMEONE ELSE TEST YOUR WATER! For pH, your water sample needs to be just water, in a sealed bag (no air).

Oh, yeah: If you dosed Mg, did you test for it? The cardinal rule in Reef Chemistry: "Don't dose anything you don't test for".

[Paul28]

Would it be better to dose that way or to drip Calcium Hydroxide to remove the co2 in the tank ?

[Bill S]

Yes, Paul, dripping kalk is a much better solution than either baking soda (bicarb) or anhydrous baking soda (sodium carbonate), HOWEVER, his indicated Ca is around 500 - and kalk will increase that.

I still think the thing to do is this:

Increase aeration/surface water flow (to blow of the CO2) and,

CHECK THOSE TEST KITS! I really think he'll find that he has a kit error somewhere...

BTW, many times, the BEST solution is big water changes.

[Paul28]

WOW ouch i miss the 500 cal umm yeh something dosent make how is ph 7.8 and cal 500 yeh the test kits half to be broke

[uriah]

I got some ph buffer and worked like a charm! All other levels look good; the buffer I got didnt really affect my alkalinity. http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/MarineBuffer.html

[uriah]

BTW- I tip my hat to all who can go into great lengths about marine systems and create home-made solutions, but for $8; you cant beat your LFS. The key is knowing what to buy.

[Noober]

I have some marine ph buffer that I need to use, but I would really rather get to the source of the problem. When I keep my doors open at night my ph stays at around 7.7 getting to about 8.0 in the day. If the fresh air is restricted then i hit about 7.8/7.9 in the day and can go as low as 7.55 at night, the api test kit reads the same as my ACIII ph probes. I am not running my calcium reactor or my kalk reactor at the moment, and I have a refuge with plenty of chato and other macro algaes and mangroves. My calcium is at 400 and my alk is at 8.0. My mag worries me because it is only at 1200 since I'm not running the co2 in the reactor I am not dissolving any dolomite. Would this mag defiency mess up my ph. I dont want to add too much buffer because I dont want my alk to get too high. Please help?

[uriah]

What are your other parameters at (specifically)?