PH Way too high!!!

[compulou]

Ok so I just re-vamped my entire ATO system. Now it's a huge container going through a Niveaumat Top Off Water Replacer then through a Fishbowlz Nilsen Kalkwasser Stirrer then to my sump. Well I had just finished setting everything up where it was working than I had to leave with my family out of town on emergency (my brothers wife almost passed giving birth to their child, thank god everything is ok) so needless to say I was a little nervous leaving my setup so newly installed. So when I got back home last night everything looked great and I gave a sigh of relief until I looked at my PH. It was @ 8.61!!! Holy high PH batman!!!. I disconnected my Stirrer and did a drip of RO/DI until it came down.

What the hell keeps the PH from shooting though the roof when your always using Kalk in your Top off water???

 

[ek9vboi]

When kalkwasser is fully dissolved into freshwater its pH is @ 12, so that just means that either you overdosed on Kalkwasser mix or your tank must have been evaporating a lot of water that the ATO system replemished the kalkwasser mix thus bringing up the pH.

 

[racermike27]

Remeber if you are dosing the kalwasser with a powerhead then a large amount of water is pumped into the sump before the float switch is turned off. Adding this much kalk saturated water all at once will account for this drastic spike in pH. It is often best to dose the kalkwasser slowly by dripping, this way there is no real spike in pH. For the top off water just use RO/DI and drip the kalk. If you have a Kalk reactor then the addition of of the top off water might be slower, so there is no real large spike.
I just drip mine into the sump and I have no evaporation problems and my Ca stays areound 400-420 ppm. I run mine at 1 drop every 2-3 seconds. My pH is 8.25 all the time.

 

[ek9vboi]

Mine tends to spike from 8.1-8.2 to 8.3-8.4 highest. I see no problem with the tank so I just leave it be. Only during the day time it goes up to 8.4 mainly due to the lights being on. My alk is high... 14dKH and calcium is at 410ppm. So far no issues so I am happy... everything is happy in the tank.

 

[compulou]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8354265#post8354265 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by racermike27
Remeber if you are dosing the kalwasser with a powerhead then a large amount of water is pumped into the sump before the float switch is turned off. Adding this much kalk saturated water all at once will account for this drastic spike in pH. It is often best to dose the kalkwasser slowly by dripping, this way there is no real spike in pH. For the top off water just use RO/DI and drip the kalk. If you have a Kalk reactor then the addition of of the top off water might be slower, so there is no real large spike.
I just drip mine into the sump and I have no evaporation problems and my Ca stays areound 400-420 ppm. I run mine at 1 drop every 2-3 seconds. My pH is 8.25 all the time.

Nope I'm not pumping Kalk water into my tank I am dosing Kalk water into my tank. So the introduction of Kalk to my tank is done slowly.