Issues with PH

M

mheredia

New member
I'm battling some issues with PH. I'm at 7.7 right now and I've been dosing Kent Buffer for the past couple of days, no increase. I do have a glass lid on my tank. My sump and skimmer are all uncovered.
What can I do to help raise this up a bit?


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Try making a net lid, instead of glass, more oxygen means better pH. don't chase pH with buffer until you check your alkalinity/magnesium/calcium, if one of those three are off, you need to correct them. I don't even check my pH, I just make sure that alk/cal/mag are stable and tank is well ventilated. A good number of people have crashed their tanks chasing pH.
 
Raise the glass lid a little if you scare the fish jump out..open the window near the tank it will help a little...7.7 not too bad...
 
I did my weekly test yesterday. All parameters are fine, except PH. I have the lids slightly open, I only have lids because of my Diamond Goby lol.
 
mheredia said:
I did my weekly test yesterday. All parameters are fine, except PH. I have the lids slightly open, I only have lids because of my Diamond Goby lol.
Click to expand...

As other members have suggested, PH tends to fluctuate during the course of the day and increases with your photo period. It's not an parameter worth chasing.

If you still want to try...
Magnesium helps keep Sodium Carbonate or Sodium Bicarbonate in solution. So if your magnesium is low your PH tends to fluctuate more. If you use baked baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to supplement Alk, it will raise your ph more than just regular baking soda / soda ash.

I top off with Kalk water (high ph) on a timer at night to balance the PH photo period swing and help keep the PH stable.

Also if you use a PH probe hooked up to a controller to measure PH, they are considered a "consumable". The probe last about a year before needing replaced.
 
Tangency said:
As other members have suggested, PH tends to fluctuate during the course of the day and increases with your photo period. It's not an parameter worth chasing.

If you still want to try...
Magnesium helps keep Sodium Carbonate or Sodium Bicarbonate in solution. So if your magnesium is low your PH tends to fluctuate more. If you use baked baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to supplement Alk, it will raise your ph more than just regular baking soda / soda ash.

I top off with Kalk water (high ph) on a timer at night to balance the PH photo period swing and help keep the PH stable.

Also if you use a PH probe hooked up to a controller to measure PH, they are considered a "consumable". The probe last about a year before needing replaced.
Click to expand...

how do you have your set up for dosing kalk at night ? i would like to do the same thing to keep my ph as stable as possible but when i dose kalk my calcium levels increase ? im using a calcium reactor now to keep the others in check but dont want to start playing with that to compensate for the kalk ??
 
Bowhunter4250 said:
how do you have your set up for dosing kalk at night ? i would like to do the same thing to keep my ph as stable as possible but when i dose kalk my calcium levels increase ? im using a calcium reactor now to keep the others in check but dont want to start playing with that to compensate for the kalk ??
Click to expand...

I top off with kalk using a RKL controller. Just for a frame of reference, I have about a gallon of evaporation a day on a 90 gallon open top aquarium in a draft apartment. Evaporation also fluctuates through out the year with outside humidity, home insulation ect. I use an aqualifter pump with a flow rate of 3.5 GPH, so needing about a gallon a day, I need the pump to run for roughly 18 min during the course of the night. The start time is set for 2 hours after the lights go off when the PH starts to drop and continues to dose for roughly 10 hours.

I use the RKL timer function to set up to dose/top off in a high flow area in my sump for on ~30 sec and off for 14 min. I repeat the function 32 times.

Regarding adjusting your reactor... Kalk is a balanced cal/alk additive so its easy to correct for. I personally use a balling method to control the cal, mag, and alk levels in my tank and the kalk top off reduces my daily dose by a touch. It will be different for every system.

Start small and adjust your dose times or intervals to tune in your needed time for correct top off level.
 
Tangency said:
I top off with kalk using a RKL controller. Just for a frame of reference, I have about a gallon of evaporation a day on a 90 gallon open top aquarium in a draft apartment. Evaporation also fluctuates through out the year with outside humidity, home insulation ect. I use an aqualifter pump with a flow rate of 3.5 GPH, so needing about a gallon a day, I need the pump to run for roughly 18 min during the course of the night. The start time is set for 2 hours after the lights go off when the PH starts to drop and continues to dose for roughly 10 hours.

I use the RKL timer function to set up to dose/top off in a high flow area in my sump for on ~30 sec and off for 14 min. I repeat the function 32 times.

Regarding adjusting your reactor... Kalk is a balanced cal/alk additive so its easy to correct for. I personally use a balling method to control the cal, mag, and alk levels in my tank and the kalk top off reduces my daily dose by a touch. It will be different for every system.

Start small and adjust your dose times or intervals to tune in your needed time for correct top off level.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info ! def. helps
 
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