PH on cycle question

S

SaphosBro

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I have a quick question and/or need some advice... It appears the PH on a tank I'm cycling is low... At present I am reading 7.67 according to my apex. I have calabrated the apex 3 times to today to make sure its reading accurate. After each calibration i placed the probe back in the 7.0 and 10.0 PH solutions and the apex reads spot on at 7 and 10ph. If my tank was out of the initial cycle id start dosing Kalkwasser in my top off water but not sure how that would affect the cycle... Any thoughts or should i just ignore the PH until the cycle is over? Alkalinity and other promoters are all in check - only PH seems a bit low. On a side note before today i had been checking the PH with a redsea PH test kit and with that kit it was fine but i tend to believe the apex lab grade probe over a test kit esp when the lab probe is reading spot on in 3 different 7.0 and 10.0 test solutions. All the apex is doing is reading an electrical signal in the 7.0 and 10.0 solutions and then drawing a line through them so i have a hard time believe its an issue with a new probe. I will order a hanna PH tested for a 3rd source in the morning however.Anyhow any advice would be great.
 
You are fine right now. I would trust the apex probe. No need to go get more testing equipment or tests.Are you running a skimmer yet?
 
I wouldn't worry too much about the pH right now.  Your alk, cal and mag all being in range and stable is the main thing.  Are you running a skimmer during the cycling process?  If not, your pH will increase once you turn it on due to the increased oxygenation.  A couple of other easy things to do to help raise pH is to make sure you have good surface agitation, and you can open a window in your home periodically.  Elevated levels of Co2 in the home can cause your pH level to drop considerably.
 
 Thanks for all the replies.I am running the skimmer - the red sea reef mature kit said to start it from day 1. Its still breaking in so its not working great yet but its running and tons of micro bubbles everywhere at the moment.As far as surface agitation I am running the MP10 about 50% power near the surface and there is a pretty good ripple at the top of the tank and while the tank only calls for about 550 gallons per hour turn over I'm running the vectra m1 at about 1000gph. Once the cycle is done and i kick on carbon and GFO that will drop a little bit as other devices hit the manifold.I have heard before to open a window - but never tired it so I will give that a shot tomorrow. I would feel a lot better if the PH would level out about 8.0 so its worth a shot and a very cheap solution.Thanks again!Shane
 
Since opening a window is only something we can do a small amount of the year, you could do something like this: https://youtu.be/t69huBU8xyMI think it would be cool to set up, but I'm going to try running a pipe with a fan to draw in outside air for my skimmer on my upcoming new build.
 
Thanks for the article on co2 scrubbing, that is very interesting. I will read more on it if this does not stabilize in the next day or so that could be an easy solution.
 
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