pH swings

[cloakerpoked]

Just wondering how much everyone's pH swings during the day. Mine will go from about 8.0 to 8.3 by the end of my 8 hour light cycle. Obviously, I'm thrilled because it means a lot of photosynthesis is going on in there, but I'm starting to wonder if I should be taking steps to minimize this swing...and if so, what that would even be without going to a Ca reactor...which would simply be too much cheddar for me to digest right now.

 

[jesterns2]

I don`t have a Ca reactor and mine goes from 8.0 to 8.03 throught the day. At this point I don`t dose at all, I just have a few softies and a very hearty ORA Digi

 

[NaClH2Opgh]

Mine is 8.2 during the day and 7.9-8.0 at night.

 

[AHDOnline]

Yeah mine goes from about 7.9 to about 8.2 daily. I run a light opposite my tank lights now otherwise the swing was pretty bad.

 

[Tswifty]

I think I'm like 8.0-8.4 night to day.

I really don't worry about it. Maybe dripping kalk or something along those lines would help if you're concerned.

 

[cloakerpoked]

As long as everyone else isn't having a problem, I'm not concerned about it. Seems like my pH swing is pretty typical of everyone elses, so I'm not going to take any action right now.

Last time I dripped kalkwasser...I lost my tank, so I probably won't be doing that anytime soon

 

[acer]

I still use kalk water about 50% with RO/DI water - but I transfer to a bucket that is used for making the 50% mix ( total about 3 gallons every other day which takes about 2 hours to dose) , and then use that - so only what I put in the bucket can get into the tank. Days that I dose during the day my ph goes up to 8.5 that day, the second night after dosing my ph goes down to 7.8. If you look at several PH articles by Randy ( in the Reef Chemistry area on Reef Central ) this is not a problem.

 

[Tswifty]

Last time I dripped kalkwasser...I lost my tank, so I probably won't be doing that anytime soon

Oh yeah... my bad... completely forgot about that.

I wouldn't be concerned though, IMO it's a normal swing. I've never really chased pH. I've seen guys who were battling extremeley low pH run their skimmer air intake outside with decent results.

 

[cloakerpoked]

It's been stable, but over the last month, the swing has increased by about an additional .1 I'm attributing it to the fact that the tank has finally settled in and all the coral that had expelled it's zooxanthelle has now had it grow back, aiding in increased photosynthetic activity which would drive the pH up. In general, I don't worry about pH, as my 120 ran high even before I was dripping kalk (and I mean high as in 8.5-8.8) with great results, so I know that the animals are fine in slightly more basic water, was just curious to see what everyone else dealt with as it's one thing that hasn't really come up much in my conversations.

Of course, if I did drip kalkwasser again, it would be the same basic system run on a timer through a pH controller. This two part is starting to get annoying. The increased draw on the tank due to much faster coral growth (a trade I'll take any day BTW) is starting to tear through my two part.