DMBillies
Active member
I wanted to post this as something for everyone to think about and because I need some ideas/solutions.
I've always had issues keeping my pH up regardless of the concentration of Ca/Alk/Mag in my tank. It's usually hovered around 8.0 using regular pH kits almost exclusively testing in the evening and usually while the lights were still on or shortly after they went out. Although slightly low, this never really bothered me and I never searched very hard for the source of the "problem" or solutions to it.
Now that I've got my ACjr. running with the pH probe I'm able to see my pH at various times throughout the day and I'm much more concerned with what I'm seeing.
My pH still gets up to about 7.9-8.1 during the day, but it is dropping to 7.5-7.6 in the few hours after lights out and only starts to steadily climb back up once the lights come back on. It takes nearly all day for the pH to climb back up. I've verified my probe readings multiple times with test kits and the probe readings are always within .1 of the test kit, so even if the probe is reading wrong, it isn't really far off.
What this means is that my 8.0 readings were taken when my pH was usually at its absolute peak and that my tank is sitting at a much lower pH throughout the majority of a 24hr. period.
I have also been adding some kalk over the past couple of days via a topoff pump/reactor and noticed it hasn't been doing much for the pH. Because I'm impatient (and probably stupid) I started adding small amounts of saturated kalk water directly to the tank throughout the day to try to get the pH up in hopes that the reactor would then maintain the pH at a higher level. Doing this would drive the pH up a bit for an hour or two but then the tank would return to a level similar to what I would expect for the time of day.
Late tonight, perplexed, somewhat bored, and not tired, I tested the tank readings. Ca was 430, Alk was 3.6, Mg was 1380, and pH was 7.5. So, all of my readings aside from pH were well within a recommended range. I then tried a few things. First, I stole a cup of water from our nano to see what the pH was and found the same low reading of about 7.5. Then, I took a cup of water out of my 270 sump and stirred it up really hard in the room for about a minute. The probe reading actually dropped by .03. Then, I took the cup outside and stirred for another minute. My probe reading jumped up by .20 :eek1:
So, it looks like my pH problems are being largely caused by higher Co2 levels in the air in my house and so aerating more with house air isn't going to do any good. Although I'm sure everyone has this problem to some extent, I'm wondering if this is particularly severe and what the easiest steps for addressing the problem are? If I can't get my tank to maintain a higher pH using kalk even during the day because the Co2 in the air is driving my pH down, then I guess the only solution to my problem is pulling air in from outside via the skimmer tube or air pump? If it wasn't so damn hot out I would open all of the windows for a day or two and see what happens to the pH, but that would most certainly create temp problems (for the tank and me).
In hind sight, it seems likely that low pH has caused some of my tanks to be particularly prone to algae problems... which is certainly something I've struggled with from time to time.
Any thoughts/ideas/solutions would be greatly appreciated.
I've always had issues keeping my pH up regardless of the concentration of Ca/Alk/Mag in my tank. It's usually hovered around 8.0 using regular pH kits almost exclusively testing in the evening and usually while the lights were still on or shortly after they went out. Although slightly low, this never really bothered me and I never searched very hard for the source of the "problem" or solutions to it.
Now that I've got my ACjr. running with the pH probe I'm able to see my pH at various times throughout the day and I'm much more concerned with what I'm seeing.
My pH still gets up to about 7.9-8.1 during the day, but it is dropping to 7.5-7.6 in the few hours after lights out and only starts to steadily climb back up once the lights come back on. It takes nearly all day for the pH to climb back up. I've verified my probe readings multiple times with test kits and the probe readings are always within .1 of the test kit, so even if the probe is reading wrong, it isn't really far off.
What this means is that my 8.0 readings were taken when my pH was usually at its absolute peak and that my tank is sitting at a much lower pH throughout the majority of a 24hr. period.
I have also been adding some kalk over the past couple of days via a topoff pump/reactor and noticed it hasn't been doing much for the pH. Because I'm impatient (and probably stupid) I started adding small amounts of saturated kalk water directly to the tank throughout the day to try to get the pH up in hopes that the reactor would then maintain the pH at a higher level. Doing this would drive the pH up a bit for an hour or two but then the tank would return to a level similar to what I would expect for the time of day.
Late tonight, perplexed, somewhat bored, and not tired, I tested the tank readings. Ca was 430, Alk was 3.6, Mg was 1380, and pH was 7.5. So, all of my readings aside from pH were well within a recommended range. I then tried a few things. First, I stole a cup of water from our nano to see what the pH was and found the same low reading of about 7.5. Then, I took a cup of water out of my 270 sump and stirred it up really hard in the room for about a minute. The probe reading actually dropped by .03. Then, I took the cup outside and stirred for another minute. My probe reading jumped up by .20 :eek1:
So, it looks like my pH problems are being largely caused by higher Co2 levels in the air in my house and so aerating more with house air isn't going to do any good. Although I'm sure everyone has this problem to some extent, I'm wondering if this is particularly severe and what the easiest steps for addressing the problem are? If I can't get my tank to maintain a higher pH using kalk even during the day because the Co2 in the air is driving my pH down, then I guess the only solution to my problem is pulling air in from outside via the skimmer tube or air pump? If it wasn't so damn hot out I would open all of the windows for a day or two and see what happens to the pH, but that would most certainly create temp problems (for the tank and me).
In hind sight, it seems likely that low pH has caused some of my tanks to be particularly prone to algae problems... which is certainly something I've struggled with from time to time.
Any thoughts/ideas/solutions would be greatly appreciated.
. I use a 40 gallon rubbermaid tub and refill it every three days, so I also go through a lot of pickling lime.
