The Secret of Higher pH

[Gigajoulz]

you are over doing. You should not chase ph.

Target Alkalinity stability with dosing. Measure daily till it’s stable. Now that your are too high let it drop slowly.

Calcium won’t move after a certain point as it precipitate out. You basically can’t over dose it, you get get a lot of particles settling on your rocks.

For you the ph the symptom not the problem. This thread is mostly discussing how experts are squeezing that extra 5-10% growth our of their operations. You need to capture the first 90%.

I think chasing pH is the exactly what I intend to do. My bio load isn't too much for a tank of 75 gal, acidification shouldn't be happening from excessive nitrification, if anything I am over feeding and the nutrients are being exported by other bacteria. I have my flow aimed at the surface of the water, and a 20 gal sponge filter for added aeration. Not to mention Kalk, but if I do all that and still don't see a rise in pH, then something isn't working.

Dosing Kalkwasser was intended to raise pH while keeping my calcium and alkalinity in check, but if you would read the numbers I provided you'll find that there is indeed an imbalance between calcium and alkalinity (the calcium is already too high, and alkalinity is going up but the pH is not). I'm guessing that pH reads low if the alkalinity is falling out of solution...it sure isn't calcifying on my corals, except one or two that I can visible see growth. I don't think I'm so much as chasing pH, but wanting to know why it doesn't rise given than I am practically dumping saturated Kalk into the tank and swinging other parameters into the positive. My math ain't mathin' somewhere in my tank, and I need to figure it out before the pH drops before 7.4.

7.4-7.5 pH is absolutely not healthy for coral, and I have been watching my stony corals literally turn white and melt while the softies appear to be glowing (just not growing, I think they've only been looking better lately due to carbon dosing). My lights aren't on high and they aren't on longer than 8 hours a day to control algea. The only thing that directly raises my pH and my alkalinity is dosing soda ash, but this has too harsh of an impact on my alkalinity, and the pH goes right back down within 6-12 hours... I think the alkalinity is precipitating out and dissolving back into solution and over buffering the water. I need the alkalinity to precipitate inside the coral, and that seems to only occur if the pH is closer to 7.8.

I mentioned that I have a green star polyp that has really taken off, but thats likely because its right up against the front glass where it receives all the flow, nutrients and minerals it needs to grow. All my other corals are practically in a low-medium flow area. And I've noticed the growth to be against the flow of the water, which supports my theory that the water has to bring the nutrients and minerals to the coral just as it has to bring the ammonia to the bacteria. Aside from the greenstar, my zoas have shrank in size, and only the mushrooms seem to be the happiest.

I shop at three LFSs and often travel to coral expos and other FS's at the edge of the state line or out of state, and no matter who I talk to about my pH issue (given my amount of rocks, sand bed, aeration, Kalk dosing, weekly 15% water changes and bio load/nitrification) they say pH 7.5-7.7 is awfully low for all of those factors to be contributing to the water chemistry. Many say the rocks I have should be buffering the water enough to keep it at 7.8, even if I had more fish, but those are not my observations.

Also, please read the discussions in this article (https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-secret-of-higher-ph.866145/#post-9485910) where @Randy Holmes-Farley addresses the controversy of "chasing pH," which I full on intend to pursue with a Milwaukee pH meter

I think my issue might be resolved using Randy's solution 1 or solution 2 mentioned in the discussions in the thread above, since he says they have a much higher impact on pH than Kalkwasser. I think one of my issues is that Mg is too low compared to the Cal and Alk, so its falling out of solution somewhere, daily, and possibly dissolving back into the water, nightly, if the pH swings are high enough. If this is the case, one might not notice precipitate while showing high Alk and low pH, if my math is mathin'. I tend to notice a dusty substance floating on my water always, and I fully believe this is carbonate or bicarbonate, which might test as high Alk but result in a low pH if those ion's are not available in solution. This is basically what I'm goin off, based on Lou Ekus's presentations.

 

[Gigajoulz]

I think my Alk and Cal are too high compared to my Mg, based on Lou Ekus's youtube master video here>

and here>
.

The graph above is explained in detail on both of these videos (although he starts by saying chemists will hate him by the end of the videos, and think thats because hes showing the relationship between calcium and alk using that teeter-totter ratio, one goes high and the other goes low, and vice versus). This makes sense in some ways, but not in others, I think its more about solubility than the two reacting together.

 

[Keko21]

My pH is running a bit high these days 8.4-8.6. No issues so far…

 

[hotdrop]

I think chasing pH is the exactly what I intend to do. My bio load isn't too much for a tank of 75 gal, acidification shouldn't be happening from excessive nitrification, if anything I am over feeding and the nutrients are being exported by other bacteria. I have my flow aimed at the surface of the water, and a 20 gal sponge filter for added aeration. Not to mention Kalk, but if I do all that and still don't see a rise in pH, then something isn't working.

Dosing Kalkwasser was intended to raise pH while keeping my calcium and alkalinity in check, but if you would read the numbers I provided you'll find that there is indeed an imbalance between calcium and alkalinity (the calcium is already too high, and alkalinity is going up but the pH is not). I'm guessing that pH reads low if the alkalinity is falling out of solution...it sure isn't calcifying on my corals, except one or two that I can visible see growth. I don't think I'm so much as chasing pH, but wanting to know why it doesn't rise given than I am practically dumping saturated Kalk into the tank and swinging other parameters into the positive. My math ain't mathin' somewhere in my tank, and I need to figure it out before the pH drops before 7.4.

7.4-7.5 pH is absolutely not healthy for coral, and I have been watching my stony corals literally turn white and melt while the softies appear to be glowing (just not growing, I think they've only been looking better lately due to carbon dosing). My lights aren't on high and they aren't on longer than 8 hours a day to control algea. The only thing that directly raises my pH and my alkalinity is dosing soda ash, but this has too harsh of an impact on my alkalinity, and the pH goes right back down within 6-12 hours... I think the alkalinity is precipitating out and dissolving back into solution and over buffering the water. I need the alkalinity to precipitate inside the coral, and that seems to only occur if the pH is closer to 7.8.

I mentioned that I have a green star polyp that has really taken off, but thats likely because its right up against the front glass where it receives all the flow, nutrients and minerals it needs to grow. All my other corals are practically in a low-medium flow area. And I've noticed the growth to be against the flow of the water, which supports my theory that the water has to bring the nutrients and minerals to the coral just as it has to bring the ammonia to the bacteria. Aside from the greenstar, my zoas have shrank in size, and only the mushrooms seem to be the happiest.

I shop at three LFSs and often travel to coral expos and other FS's at the edge of the state line or out of state, and no matter who I talk to about my pH issue (given my amount of rocks, sand bed, aeration, Kalk dosing, weekly 15% water changes and bio load/nitrification) they say pH 7.5-7.7 is awfully low for all of those factors to be contributing to the water chemistry. Many say the rocks I have should be buffering the water enough to keep it at 7.8, even if I had more fish, but those are not my observations.

Also, please read the discussions in this article (https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-secret-of-higher-ph.866145/#post-9485910) where @Randy Holmes-Farley addresses the controversy of "chasing pH," which I full on intend to pursue with a Milwaukee pH meter

I think my issue might be resolved using Randy's solution 1 or solution 2 mentioned in the discussions in the thread above, since he says they have a much higher impact on pH than Kalkwasser. I think one of my issues is that Mg is too low compared to the Cal and Alk, so its falling out of solution somewhere, daily, and possibly dissolving back into the water, nightly, if the pH swings are high enough. If this is the case, one might not notice precipitate while showing high Alk and low pH, if my math is mathin'. I tend to notice a dusty substance floating on my water always, and I fully believe this is carbonate or bicarbonate, which might test as high Alk but result in a low pH if those ion's are not available in solution. This is basically what I'm goin off, based on Lou Ekus's presentations.

I think my Alk and Cal are too high compared to my Mg, based on Lou Ekus's youtube master video here>

and here>
.

The graph above is explained in detail on both of these videos (although he starts by saying chemists will hate him by the end of the videos, and think thats because hes showing the relationship between calcium and alk using that teeter-totter ratio, one goes high and the other goes low, and vice versus). This makes sense in some ways, but not in others, I think it’s more about solubility than the two reacting together

I think my Alk and Cal are too high compared to my Mg, based on Lou Ekus's youtube master video here>

and here>
.

The graph above is explained in detail on both of these videos (although he starts by saying chemists will hate him by the end of the videos, and think thats because hes showing the relationship between calcium and alk using that teeter-totter ratio, one goes high and the other goes low, and vice versus). This makes sense in some ways, but not in others, I think its more about solubility than the two reacting together.

you basic parameter are way off. Idk what your are using to test by that might not be helping either.

If you stabilize Alk CA and Mg to normal but stable levels and are still having ph issues then you should continue to troubleshoot. I would not recommend targeting ph directly as it well cause other parameters to swing out of wack. Instead go after feeding or rocks or air exchange

 

[Gigajoulz]

you basic parameter are way off. Idk what your are using to test by that might not be helping either.

If you stabilize Alk CA and Mg to normal but stable levels and are still having ph issues then you should continue to troubleshoot. I would not recommend targeting ph directly as it well cause other parameters to swing out of wack. Instead go after feeding or rocks or air exchange

Well see I'm not really targeting pH directly, but I'm trying to adjust the other parameters such as Cal, Alk, and Mg, not to mention perform carbon dosing with vinegar - all of these affect pH, so the claim that one is "chasing pH' can mean a lot of things. My goal is to bring these parameters into balance, because even before I began toping off the tank or adding fish, I had a pH around 7.8 at startup. Over time the pH has gone down with consistent water changes, and Kalk dosing, and adding aeration, and so forth... I even removed 6/17 fish as recent as 2 weeks ago, which is about 1/3 of the bio load. I agree I'm doing a lot, but I what I am doing is attempting to raise my parameters to get a much needed boost in pH.

The last to the tank has been adding Kalkwasser to a new doser/top off (a doser that I have improvised into a Kalk auto top off). My research points to using something with Hydroxide, but, I'm and I'm afraid to use two parts with sodium and chloride because that might affect my salinity and unintentionally raise that, which then has to be diluted with fresh water which dilutes everything else by volume, lowering alk and etc, lowering pH. Kalk was intended to prevent that dilution of the pH boosting elements in the water, because I found simply topping off the tank with RODI just lowered the levels that were already being depleted by the coral, algae and bacteria. The principle applies to dosing trace elements when you top off...in this case, the top off ultimately results in a lowered Alk and a lower pH.

So I'm not chasing pH, but rather, everything else around it in an effort to raise those parameters to elevated but safe levels that bring on a positive change in pH. I'm not looking for 8.3 or even 8.0, but I'm not lookin to stay at 7.5 for much longer, lest I risk losing corals that I have never seen anywhere else that I've acquired from out of state, on vacations, and from community trades.


Test Kit Details

pH is tested with a $35 red slim Hanna tester that basically sits in the tank at the surface as if it were a Milwaukee. I occasionally clean it with the HCl Hanna cleaning solution.

Alkalinity is tested with a Hanna colorimeter (dKH) and tested drop-wise with a Slifert test kit. They seem to be within ± 0.2-0.3 dKH of each other and tend to trust the Salifert over the Hanna until I purchase the calibration voas for the colorimeter to see how accurate the tester is.

Calcium is tested drop-wise with the API test kit, will soon replace with a Red Sea test kit and Hanna meter.

Magnesium is tested drop wise with the Salifert kit, but will soon replace with a Red Sea test kit and a Hanna meter.

For Nitrate, I use the API Nitrate test kit to calibrate the Hanna Nitrate ULR tested (for dilutions), and I use an API and Hanna meter for Phosphate.

I sometimes play around with testing RODI water with these kits, and test fresh saltwater sometimes just to see how the test lines up with the metrics on the side of the salt bucket (and to zero the kits with RODI to make sure my RODI is effective besides TDS). I also used to work in a wet lab for about two years, handling acidified water samples for testing of total lead, and extracted lead from soil using nitric acid and a tested with a SpectrAA lead furnace. From that job, I gained lab techniques that I use in every aspect of my hobby, including testing.

 

[Gigajoulz]

you basic parameter are way off. Idk what your are using to test by that might not be helping either.

If you stabilize Alk CA and Mg to normal but stable levels and are still having ph issues then you should continue to troubleshoot. I would not recommend targeting ph directly as it well cause other parameters to swing out of wack. Instead go after feeding or rocks or air exchange

Would you mind looking at my notes and tank data on this thread? https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/low-ph-high-alk-and-calcium-with-kalkwasser.980062/#post-11289401 there are much more details about my tank to contextualize my dosing regimen. I am open to installing a refugium or skimmer, or a CO2 reactor on my sponge filter air intake, because I notice when I blow on the rocks a lot of nasty comes of them. I think the acidification could be coming from the rocks, but to over come that I intend to adjust the water parameters because I don't like to disturb the tank at all. I don't even clean the sand bed.

I am actually moving homes soon and the new location will have the garage on the other side of the wall from the tank, so I intend to run an umbilical through the wall so I can run an airline outside until I work on a CO2 reactor setup, and do water changes and top offs automatically from the garage to reduce the labor behind water changes.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think chasing pH is the exactly what I intend to do.

I've never like the "chasing" term that is applied when someone doesn't like what you are doing.

Chasing is always appropriate, IMO, if you have appropriate target ranges and appropriate ways of getting there.

In a nutshell, its the whole premise of being a reef keeper.

 

[hotdrop]

I've never like the "chasing" term that is applied when someone doesn't like what you are doing.

Chasing is always appropriate, IMO, if you have appropriate target ranges and appropriate ways of getting there.

In a nutshell, its the whole premise of being a reef keeper.

It depends on what you mean by “chase”.

Usually we start with a premise like “healthy reef tanks have a ph of 7.8-8.5 with higher being better.

What people hear from that is that I need to fix my ph at 8.5 because that’s best. So they use chemicals to drive up ph to 8.5 and that causes other critical parameters to fluctuate wildly.

When I think of ph I think of it as a secondary monitoring parameter. First you fix Alk, Cal, mg at some target point. Then with those set you vary the other variables (feeding, bio load, air exchange, rock work ) and see if you can nudge the ph towards what a healthy tank would be expected to have. With ph being a prameter you monitor but not one you lock down.
Do you see value in locking it down ph using chemistry for a young tank? Seems to me like it’s very likely to yield other more important parameters being off.
That’s my thoughts on chasing vs monitoring

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It depends on what you mean by “chase”.

Well, I don't use the term, its others that do, and their use of it that I was referring to. lol

It is nearly always used to imply a negative thing, and IMO, it is only a negative thing if you do not chase properly.

I hardly ever see folks complaining about others "chasing" temperature or alkalinity, because they think those are important.

Instead of using the term chase, why not come right out and say you do not think trying to control pH (or whatever parameter) is useful or desirable. Then we can debate the merits of the chosen parameter, and the means of attaining it.