Brian71583
New Member
Help me diagnose and dial things in. Also tell me if this pH swing is "Good Enough"
Backstory: I built a reef-pi about a year ago. I set up my pH feature around this past Christmas and never calibrated my probe. I know, I can hear you! Never had a problem with it but was never chasing any numbers until recently when I upgraded my lighting to what I could grow corals with. Then I started Kalk dosing. It took me a while to get settings correct and what seemed like good numbers although I could never get my pH above 8.1. Forget what my Alkalinity number was but it was good. Maybe 11 or 12. I forget. 2 weeks ago I hit Reef-a-Palooza and grabbed some nice frags and they have been great.
My LFS has one of the Aquaspin tests and every few months I'll take a sample in just to verify my own tests/monitors/results. Well I don't know how anything was alive because my pH probe was off and I hadn't checked Alkalinity in a while. pH was 8.8 and Alkalinity was 19.
Needless to say I ordered solution and calibrated my probe QUICK. After cutting my Kalk dosing literally in 1/2 and doing a 25% water change I am where I should be. Alkalinity is about 8.5-9 which I want to bring up JUST A LITTLE and pH is right at or below 8.4
Can you guys look at these graphs and give me some insight please (Ignore the earthquake at the beginning that was right after calibrating and then putting it back into the tank and then doing a water change)
These pH graphs are all the same I just have the cursor at different points to highlight the times and values.
In the first pH curve you'll see that from about 7:30pm to 2:30am I dip about .1
All the way up to 1:00 in the afternoon I stay steady at that 8.3ish but at 1:00 I begin to ramp up a full .1 in 4.5 hours but you can also see that peak already begins to wane an hour and a half later at 6:00PM
My lighting schedule 8:00am blues come on and ramp up to 100% at about 11:00am which at the same 11:00am point my whites begin their ramp to 100% at about Noon. Whites begin their hour ramp down at about 4:00pm to 0% at 5:00pm. Blue stay on till about 10:00 Pm but the ramp down isn't visible in this graph.
My dosing schedule is also shown but I'll break it down
It shows seconds but each second is about 1ml
Midnight to 8:00am I dose full saturation Kalk at about 15ml/hour.
9:00am to 3:00pm I dose about 10ml/hour
4:00pm back to Midnight I am back at the same 15ml/hour
It looks like my peak coincides with my white lights. Is a .1 dip OK for a reef tank. Not sure if I should try and "fix" this or leave well enough alone. If you were to play with it what would you recommend.
Backstory: I built a reef-pi about a year ago. I set up my pH feature around this past Christmas and never calibrated my probe. I know, I can hear you! Never had a problem with it but was never chasing any numbers until recently when I upgraded my lighting to what I could grow corals with. Then I started Kalk dosing. It took me a while to get settings correct and what seemed like good numbers although I could never get my pH above 8.1. Forget what my Alkalinity number was but it was good. Maybe 11 or 12. I forget. 2 weeks ago I hit Reef-a-Palooza and grabbed some nice frags and they have been great.
My LFS has one of the Aquaspin tests and every few months I'll take a sample in just to verify my own tests/monitors/results. Well I don't know how anything was alive because my pH probe was off and I hadn't checked Alkalinity in a while. pH was 8.8 and Alkalinity was 19.
Needless to say I ordered solution and calibrated my probe QUICK. After cutting my Kalk dosing literally in 1/2 and doing a 25% water change I am where I should be. Alkalinity is about 8.5-9 which I want to bring up JUST A LITTLE and pH is right at or below 8.4
Can you guys look at these graphs and give me some insight please (Ignore the earthquake at the beginning that was right after calibrating and then putting it back into the tank and then doing a water change)
These pH graphs are all the same I just have the cursor at different points to highlight the times and values.
In the first pH curve you'll see that from about 7:30pm to 2:30am I dip about .1
All the way up to 1:00 in the afternoon I stay steady at that 8.3ish but at 1:00 I begin to ramp up a full .1 in 4.5 hours but you can also see that peak already begins to wane an hour and a half later at 6:00PM
My lighting schedule 8:00am blues come on and ramp up to 100% at about 11:00am which at the same 11:00am point my whites begin their ramp to 100% at about Noon. Whites begin their hour ramp down at about 4:00pm to 0% at 5:00pm. Blue stay on till about 10:00 Pm but the ramp down isn't visible in this graph.
My dosing schedule is also shown but I'll break it down
It shows seconds but each second is about 1ml
Midnight to 8:00am I dose full saturation Kalk at about 15ml/hour.
9:00am to 3:00pm I dose about 10ml/hour
4:00pm back to Midnight I am back at the same 15ml/hour
It looks like my peak coincides with my white lights. Is a .1 dip OK for a reef tank. Not sure if I should try and "fix" this or leave well enough alone. If you were to play with it what would you recommend.
I've been keeping reef tanks for several years now after about a 10 year break. The last two months I finally have a surviving Birdsnest - supposedly one of the easiest SPS. Hopefully everything is good after bringing the Alk down.
