Increase pH without increasing alkalinity?

[avilamillar]

Hey I had never really measured my pH until I got my pH monitor not too long ago. I realized that my lowest pH reading throughout 24 hrs was around 7.5 and the highest around 8.3, so I changed my dosing pumps to 2 smaller doses a day instead of a larger one and the pH now stays between 7.6 and 8.1

Whenever I have my lights on it stays pretty stable around 8.0 but at night is when I'm having troubles. I'm running some zeovit products and it asks to keep alk around 7.5 and Ca around 420. My parameters are around those values already so I want to raise my pH a little more but dont want my alk to go up. Is that possible?

Thanks

[hobogato]

let some fresh air in from outside. you may be getting a buildup of CO2 in your house or around your tank that is driving your pH down.

[blupez]

when was your last water change?

[Texreefer]

also maybe consider cutting your dosing in half and do it twice a day at 12 hours apart

[avilamillar]

let some fresh air in from outside. you may be getting a buildup of CO2 in your house or around your tank that is driving your pH down.

We try to open the windows a couple hours a day, the tank doesn't have a canopy and is right besides the door so fresh air comes in whenever someone opens it. I don't have anyway to measure the CO2 in the house but I don't think that's the problem.

[avilamillar]

when was your last water change?

About a week ago but before that I went about 1 month or even a little more without water changes

[avilamillar]

also maybe consider cutting your dosing in half and do it twice a day at 12 hours apart

Yeah that's what I did and it got a little more stable but still dropping to 7.6 during the night.

I dose alk at 10am and 10pm. Calcium at 4pm and 4am

[bfoleyiii]

take some tank water outside with an air pump and let it go for a few minutes and check the PH, that should give you an idea of you are running CO2 issues inside. Do you have a refugium going with the lights running offset of your display? I know in my house it is a CO2 issue and my wife wont let me run the skimmer line outside so I drip KALK from my top off and that helps.

[avilamillar]

take some tank water outside with an air pump and let it go for a few minutes and check the PH, that should give you an idea of you are running CO2 issues inside. Do you have a refugium going with the lights running offset of your display? I know in my house it is a CO2 issue and my wife wont let me run the skimmer line outside so I drip KALK from my top off and that helps.

Ill try that. How long should it take for the pH to go up in the water with the airpump ?

I was thinking on puting kalk in my top off but wanted to check if I could do something else to correct it

[avilamillar]

Oh also I dont have a sump.

[Big_Pun]

I think chasing ph is dangerous, I've had so many customers come in after crashing theirs tank trying to chase ph. I would leave it alone unless it goes dangerously low. my new tank has been swinging low to 7.7 but nothing is stressed, I just leave it.

[avilamillar]

I think chasing ph is dangerous, I've had so many customers come in after crashing theirs tank trying to chase ph. I would leave it alone unless it goes dangerously low. my new tank has been swinging low to 7.7 but nothing is stressed, I just leave it.

So should I just leave it even if there's a .5 change throughout 24 hours? The lowest would be around 7.55-7.6

I don't wanna do anything drastic and that's why I'm asking first. I'll try to aerate the water in a separate container to check if it is a CO2 problem, if not I will just leave it.

[350gt]

I was told to leave it alone too.....

[Big_Pun]

do you see any problem with livestock?? mine goes from 8.1 to 7.5 daily with no problem.

[avilamillar]

do you see any problem with livestock?? mine goes from 8.1 to 7.5 daily with no problem.

Well I have gotten 3 Acropora Secale and they all get brown with little polyp extension, and one died. Not sure if pH is the problem though... all other SPS look fine, so I thought maybe the a. secale could be more sensitive to pH than the others.

[Big_Pun]

what exactly is your filtration

[avilamillar]

what exactly is your filtration

Deltec MCE600 and biopellets. Could biopellets have something to do with the low pH? I have been running them for about 6 months

[Big_Pun]

there's your answer the pellets have bi product of co2 which will crash ph. the outlet needs to be as close as possible to skimmer so it can aerate the water from pellet reactor before entering tank.

[avilamillar]

there's your answer the pellets have bi product of co2 which will crash ph. the outlet needs to be as close as possible to skimmer so it can aerate the water from pellet reactor before entering tank.

Should've said I had biopellets before, my bad. The outlet is pretty close to the skimmers intake already but I was thinking on getting a PVC tee to have the skimmer intake and reactor outlet connected to it. I just procrastinated on that mod. I would go to home depot to get the stuff but is closed already. Will try it tomorrow and update results.

Thanks

[Big_Pun]

cool glad we figured it out!! :)

[avilamillar]

cool glad we figured it out!! :)

Yeah :) appreciate the help

[avilamillar]

So I finally modified the biopellet reactor outlet but instead of using a pvc tee to plug the reactor outlet and skimmer intake, I just bought a pvc "L' and directed the reactor's outlet to the skimmer's intake. It looks like this:

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn167/avilamillar/20120427_150950.jpg

I hope that solves the pH issue.

Thanks