Yep, PH issue, and possible other things.

[Taxman20]

I know this has been discussed to the ends of the earth, and it seems simple to get PH under control. But Ive been battling High PH. My PH would stay around 8.2 to 8.4 for long periods, months. Then it starts climbing. I do not have a way do get co2 into the water. I have been dosing vinegar to get it down but it goes right back up by the next day, sometimes faster. Right now my PH is 9.0+ .

Also I am dosing BRS 2 part and was using soda ash for alk. I found that was probably the issue with rising PH so I switched it to sodium bicarbonate just over a week ago. I do think this was the issue but now Im fighting to get the ph down again.

Its a 75g mixed reef. Fuge with Chato thats doing great and a skimmer. I also started running a GFO reactor to control some green algae I was having an issue with. I can does it with 50 to 70ml of vinegar and it drops the PH to about 8.7 to 8.8 . By the end of the day or next morning, the PH is back up so I dose again. It just not coming down and staying down. I do a 10gal water change every weekend.

Coral info and what they are doing. Lighting is a Reefbreeders 48" Photon V2. Still messing with getting PAR just right but it ranges from low 100 to about 260 depending on location. Corals are placed where they should be based on requirements. I will post a pic of the tank with all par levels shown.
Green birdsnest doing great.
Orange digi is all bleached with decent polyp extension and shows green where it is growing. Just no base color.
2 monti caps doing great.
1 Acro has good ( not great ) color and mid range polyp ext.
1 Acro has good color and no polyp ext.
1 indonesia sps has browned out some and should be dark purple, no polyp ext.
Shrooms and Ricordia are doing great.
Zoas are doing well. Some are stretching out which says they need more light. Ill move them eventually. Some are perfect. And the worst is the Rainbow incinerators. I bought it with 2 heads, less than a year later I had 7 heads. Then they started shrinking and melting. Lost 2 polyps. Ive been moving them trying to find the right light and have been able to keep the 5 polyps but they arent as big as they should be and arent really too happy.


Last weekends parameters are here. I will test it all again this weekend. I only check Ca and dkh every couple of days to make sure the dosing is correct. Ive been trying to get the dosing correct and it seems to be right now.
PH was 8.8 and now is 9.0
Ca 410
Alk was 9.0 and now its 8.4
Ammonia .15 I think this kicked up due to some different coral feeding I was doing. Normally its 0
Nitrite .01 due to feeding and is normally 0
Nitrate estimated .5 normally its about .2
Mag is always over the chart 1600+ , I never dose it and it never comes down.
Iodine .07 This text is a red sea and it states it should take about 5 minutes to read correct. Mine always reacts instantly. If I let it sit for 5 minutes, it shows low levels.
Potassium less than 320 . I have ordered a supplement from Brightwell that will be here today.
Phosphate .05 tested with a Hanna
SG 1.26 and is normally 1.25
Temp 77-80 using 2 temperate mechanical thermometers.

I know this is a lot of info in one post. So if you have advise on PH, Lighting, corals etc please let me know. Im not new and had a 180g many years ago that did pretty well but Ive never had a perfect system. There are always some type of issue I am fighting. Im no chemist nor reef expert. So I do seek help when it gets to a point that I cant figure it out on my own with some research. So i thank you guys in advance.

The pics here is when i first got the tank going. I will post other pics that were taken a week ago. Most pics need to be resized and wouldnt load. But here are a few.

 

[Taxman20]

Current picture as of last weekend when I received my new PAR meter.

I removed the 5 very large green mushrooms from the rock on the upper left under the birdsnest. They are now on the floor and the birdsnest did not like them being touched. Thats why that rock has a lot of white area on it.

The green torch was 1 head originally and is now 3 heads. I also placed them at the bottom from when i got the tank setup at first.

 

[C. Eymann]

How are you testing pH ? and when in correlation to photoperiod and 2 part (alk component) additions are you taking your readings?

 

[taricha]

PH was 8.8 and now is 9.0
Ca 410
Alk was 9.0 and now its 8.4

Don't think that's possible.
get a bottle of tank water and bubble with an airstone for 1hr or so, then check pH.
If it drops from "9.0" to low 8's then your tank is somehow massively CO2 deficient. Never seen that.
If it stays around the same pH as you were reading in-tank, then your pH is badly inaccurate. This is almost certainly the case.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-03/rhf/

 

[Taxman20]

PH is with an American Marine Pinpoint tester. I have calibration solution coming in today to make sure its accurate.

My Ca and Alk start dosing at midnight. 1 hour separation between the two. And each one doses every 2 hours until its done for the day. Ca is about 9 doses and Alk is 5.

I have been turning my Refugium light off overnight to try and get the PH to fall a little. Was running it when tank lights were off. Then the timer on it quit working and it ran 24/7 which was ok until the PH started going up again. So now I leave it off for a few days, then run it at night for a couple nights to keep the Chato happy. It is a Kessil H80

 

[Taxman20]

Well then. I check my skimmer each morning and evening. Just to be safe its correct. It was running wild just now and dumping dirty water back into the tank. The tanks overflow was producing skim foam in the fuge side which is great. So fixing that right now.

BUT, the PH is now showing 8.5 to 8.6 and I didnt dose Vinegar. Maybe its a lack or aeration. Heck i dont know.

Taricha, I will try that. i need to get a small pump and stone.

 

[C. Eymann]

PH is with an American Marine Pinpoint tester. I have calibration solution coming in today to make sure its accurate.

Me thinks pH probe is wonky/needs calibration
Have you tested pH with reagent to reference?

 

[Taxman20]

I dont have a PH test kit. Just the tester.

 

[Taxman20]

Just an update on the PH. It was at 8.6 at 8am and is now at 9.05 at 4:15pm. This is the kind of thing Ive been struggling with.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Can you test it with a tritation test kit like API or possibly having a LFS test it as well. I suspect an error with the pinpoint.

 

[Taxman20]

Can you test it with a tritation test kit like API or possibly having a LFS test it as well. I suspect an error with the pinpoint.

Im going to check the calibration when i get the shipment in today to see if its calibrated. I plan to hit the LFS tomorrow or Sunday to trade them some corals I dont need. Ill have them test a sample but I will also buy a test kit if they have a good one.

 

[GainesvilleReef]

Ph probes also creep up with age. Also, do you keep the probe in the tank?

 

[smartwater101]

9.0 is high (probe issue perhaps?) but I intentionally run 8.53 - 8.6 and recently had a spike to 8.8. This was running Profilux, Apex Classic, and Pinpoint (im slow about getting rid of old gear lol) all re-calibrated and new BRS probes to confirm.

8.6 never was much of a problem but wow Alk uptake is high in that range. But once it jumped to 8.8 I had some serious die-off. I also read that even the smallest amount of Ammonia will become a serious issue with higher pH. That, on top of instability with alk, caused some major headaches. This just happened in the last month and I'm down to 8.4 - 8.5 where I feel much more comfortable.

Adjusting the lighting scheduled helped in terms of ph, but since there were already issues, I think using lighting scheduled as a fix, just exacerbated the problem. Corals not happy.

Ultimately, I had no other choice but to do several water changes since most salts are low(ish) pH. I swapped from Red Sea Coral back to Tropic Marin, since Tropic Marin has lower alk and gives me a bit more control. Another thing to consider is what you use to dose alk. Kalkwasser will raise pH a bit more than other supplements. I use Randy-Holmes recipe #2, which also is a high pH additive.

One last thing I'm curious about is your housing situation. I live in an LA apartment and during the summer (heck even in the winter) is hard to keep the temperature stable. My place is like a pizza oven, in how it holds in heat. So windows open/windows closed (because of AC) can be a big impact on pH. (I can't wait till I have a house with proper central air.) Running higher pH is something I should forgo, in the summers at the very least.

pH is so much more important than people make it out to be. High pH (8.4-8.6) can be great in terms of coral growth, but wow can it go badly fast. First get some new probes and perhaps a second monitor just to confirm your readings. And focus on some water changes and the additives you use.

Good luck getting yours back on track!!

 

[Taxman20]

The probe is in the sump as is the monitor itself.

PH dropped back to 8.6 overnight and will crepe back up to 9.0+ by the end of the lighting cycle. The lights ramp slowly to a max of 30-50% ( depending on channel ) for 3 hours then ramp back down. Total lighting cycle is 12 hours.

I finally got my stuff to at least calibrate the probe and maybe thats the issue. If it is in calibration already, then Ill look for a new probe. Then go from there. Ive been trying not to buy a bunch of control items because Im really on the fence with the Apex system or the new one coming out next year from CoralVue, the Hydros.

My Alk dosing is with BRS . I was using Soda Ash but that raises PH. I just switched last week to Sodium Bicarbonate. Which isnt supposed to raise PH. We will see.

My housing is a home. Due to the high heat we live with here from June to October at least, we dont open windows and doors much. Ive read about the space tanks are in as well and the air thats in that space. I doubt thats the issue but it might not be helping matters.

Thanks for the input guys. I know its a process and I will get it figured out. It did this before and I figured out how to get it down. And now due to being old I cant remember what I did.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I know this has been discussed to the ends of the earth, and it seems simple to get PH under control. But Ive been battling High PH. My PH would stay around 8.2 to 8.4 for long periods, months. Then it starts climbing. I do not have a way do get co2 into the water. I have been dosing vinegar to get it down but it goes right back up by the next day, sometimes faster. Right now my PH is 9.0+ .

pH 9+ is test error, not a pH problem.

 

[Taxman20]

Thanks Randy.

I just swapped the 9v battery in the meter. It always shows lowbat so I never really know. Either the battery or the power down and back on changed it to mid 7 range. I then calibrated the meter. It was actually low on the 7 end by .5 . Now with the calibration and new battery, it shows 7.8 Ill have to get some PH buffer to raise it up. I turned my Fuge light back on and will leave it on 24/7 again which will help get it up a little over time today.