High PH in a hypo tank ?

[goodtimes2]

I read Randy's article on high Ph and found my hypo (fish only )tank with a very high alk 6.2 Meg/ L and very low Calc 100 and a PH of 8.55 I have live rock and a sand bed and been treating my fish for about 5 weeks for ick. The fish are eating well , but my PH monitor showed a PH at 8.5 to 8.55 over the last week. It has been creeping up over the 5 week period.This was my old 90 gallon display tank. I left the rock and sand in , because I was QTing some leopard wrasse and thought this would be a better way to treat them. I have check the PH monitor and it is accurate.Usually running a low salinity tank , you may have a battle with low PH. Per his article it indicated that this may happen , but normally doesn't last long. Should I try to increase my Calc to hopefully bring the PH down to 8.4 or let it run it course?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm not surprised at that alk that the pH is high. But 8.55 is OK, IMO.

How did the alk get that high?

 

[goodtimes2]

In the beginning , when I dropped my salinty from 1.23 to 1.09 , my PH drop from 8.3 range to 8.0 and a little lower, I added some baking soda maybe 3 weeks ago to raise it a bit,Everything was okay for a good 3 weeks, but I haven't been making any water changes in 3 weeks and it just started to creep up. I am running a high end skimmer and still managed to pull out a fair amount of crud. At PH of 8.5 it seems fairly stable and the fish do not seem stressed. Just concern that I am at the outer edge of what people recommend. Thanks again for your input.

 

[bertoni]

I might do some water changes to lower the alkalinity, but adding calcium isn't going to help unless you force some precipitation, which is more mess than it's worth.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree water changes if you want to lower the alk, but that pH is OK.