PH Help

M

mtex4

Premium Member
I realize PH drops a night and mine usually went from 8.07 to 8.20 but now mine is swinging too much, at least I think. It is going from 7.77 at night to 8.40 during the day. Has anyone else ever experienced this?
Other info: Calibrated my PH probe twice.
And only recent changes are: Added four pieces of old sun dried live rock (about the size of half dollar each) to my sump. Use them for frag plugs. And added new T5 bulbs about a 2 ½ weeks ago. Haven’t seen the PH change until this past weekend so I don’t think it’s the lights?????
Thoughts/help?!
 
do you have a skimmer? skimmers help aerate the water ph is affected by co2 levels. Do you ever open a window or a door to air out the house? That helps. And having a fuge with a light on the macro algae on an opposite time schedule as the main lights helps as well. Is your tank covered? Do you have surface agitation? Air exchange is key.
 
Mostly likely culprit for unstable pH is alkalinity. How are you maintaining ca/alk? What are your water params?
 
Thanks & here is more info.
Have a fuge and running a Bubble Magus NAC 7. Run the light on the fuge at night (opposite the tank). Had the windows open this entire past week with the nice weather. Tank is covered on half and open on the other half. Good surface agitation. My calc/alk is controlled with Kalkwasser in top off water. Current water param = 9 alk, calc running at 400, temp at 77.5, and current PH (per probe) 8.10. Everything looks great just concerns me to see the very large swing from night to day. I have had a reef tank for 7 years now and have never seen this before. Don’t want to lose anything!
 
Sometimes spent pH probes can start "wandering". Meaning that they will go way off and then return after you shake/move/rinse/etc. them. You can usually calibrate them again, but they'll wander again afterward.

It could be that you're dosing too much kalk during the day (high evaporation) vs. night (low evaporation). Stop dosing for a 24-48 hours and see how that effects things.

How much water % change per month?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top