Question about PH

[goldslinger]

Hello,

I have a lot of softies, and a few lps, and a purple montipora, crustaceans, fish, liverock with its mullosks in my 56 gallon. The tank is fairly new at 10 weeks having water in it. Salinity is 1025. I do 4 gallon bi weekly water changes.

I have recently started doing the BRS 2 part dosing which keeps my calcium at 240 and the alkalinity at 9.5 or so. The PH is always around 7.90 to 8.03. Should I be happy with the ph as it is secondary in importance or should I use some buffer that I have?

I'm thinking that if the corals are happy, then let the ph go where it goes.

Am I right?

 

[Xavibear]

Don't worry about the pH.

Your Ca is low. What is your Mg?

Look at some of the articles here:
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102605

I personally think this section is must read:
The "How To" Guide to Reef Aquarium Chemistry for Beginners

 

[gone fishin]

I will guess you meant 420 for calcium. I would not add anything for the pH. It is fine. Sit back relax and enjoy your piece of the ocean.

 

[Spar]

+1 on ignore pH completely (paraphrased for that +1 anyway). Just keep your Alk, Ca and Mg stable and you will be fine... with a bigger emphasis on Alk being stable.

 

[goldslinger]

Hey,
Yea, I meant 420 on the calcium, sorry. The magnesium is around 1340. Seems the water changes keep that level up. I use Brightwell Aquatics Neo marine reef salt. I check the magnesium about every 2 weeks and manually dose that if need be, haven't had to yet.

I sprung for the dosing pumps and used the apex programming guide found here. Thanks to Whomever did that!

Thank You All for the most helpful replies!

I won't worry about the PH then. Even the silver Xenia is very happy and pumping away!

 

[Spar]

Even the silver Xenia is very happy and pumping away!

Then you will have more Xenia than you will ever have hoped for in no time :artist:

Pretty coral until it takes over.

Regardless, sounds like you are doing things right!

 

[Teenreefer15]

don't worry about the ph. You should be doing around 10-20 gallon water changes though. 4 gallon WC's are for tanks around 20 gallons.

 

[goldslinger]

don't worry about the ph. You should be doing around 10-20 gallon water changes though. 4 gallon WC's are for tanks around 20 gallons.

With the 100lbs of dry and live rock and refug rubble, it puts My water volume I would guess to about 53 gallons including what's in the sump. I've been told 20% per month, which is close to what I've been doing. I also have a 200micron sock I change every 4 Days, a ridiculously overkill skimz skimmer, a GFO and carbon reactor, and I dose Salifert Iodide/Iodate bi-weekly(the week I don't do a water change) because I can test for it with the Salifert test kit for that. I also dose Magnesium if needed. Do You All still think I need to do a 1/3 water change per Month?

Right now, My Nitrates are about 4, Nitrites = 0, Ammonia = 0. Phosphates (Hannah low ppb) = 0. I do want to run my tank slightly dirty for the mushrooms and Xenia.

The reason for 4 instead of 5 is that I don't want to slosh water out of the 5 gallon buckets on Our White carpet on the way to the toilet to dump it.