Hello,
I'm just getting my reef tank up and running and am experiencing some pretty radical pH swings that I would love to find some explanation for.
First - I've been running for about 6 weeks now w/ an aragonite (sp) sand base, and some live sand. Two weeks ago I added ~40 pounds of live rock (don't ask about the mantis shrimp). That's it.
Everything has looked fine, but, last Thursday, I got my shiny new Apex unit and placed it in the sump. For a day, the pH readings looked spot on... then they turned into a jagged mess, jumping between ~7 and ~9. Knowing that I need to be getting in the habit of water changes, I did about a 15% change. PHP immediately became a solid 8.4... until about 2:30AM last night - then, in a span of ~30 minutes, raised to 9, and then, about an hour later, to 10. It remained there will about 5:30AM, then fell like a rock to 8.2 and just been up and down all day since then.
Prior to the Apex arriving I was using a decent test kit and the pH looked ok... now that I see numbers, I'm not sure if I should be believing them, or if there's something wrong w/ my probe (or the placement of the probe).
Everything else looks fine.
A few other pieces of information -
1. The tank is a Zeroedge ~80gallon tank. Lots of aeration.
2. I installed a Geo calcium reactor this weekend, but turned it off when I started to see fluctuation. Turning it off had no effect.
3. Yes, I have a protein skimmer.
4. Topoff is RO/DI water, currently pumping through an empty GEO kalkwasser reactor.
Any ideas/explanation would be greatly appreciated. I had thought I was approaching a point where things were stable, but it appears that may not be the case. That, or my pH probe is very unhappy.
Thanks for your assistance,
John
I'm just getting my reef tank up and running and am experiencing some pretty radical pH swings that I would love to find some explanation for.
First - I've been running for about 6 weeks now w/ an aragonite (sp) sand base, and some live sand. Two weeks ago I added ~40 pounds of live rock (don't ask about the mantis shrimp). That's it.
Everything has looked fine, but, last Thursday, I got my shiny new Apex unit and placed it in the sump. For a day, the pH readings looked spot on... then they turned into a jagged mess, jumping between ~7 and ~9. Knowing that I need to be getting in the habit of water changes, I did about a 15% change. PHP immediately became a solid 8.4... until about 2:30AM last night - then, in a span of ~30 minutes, raised to 9, and then, about an hour later, to 10. It remained there will about 5:30AM, then fell like a rock to 8.2 and just been up and down all day since then.
Prior to the Apex arriving I was using a decent test kit and the pH looked ok... now that I see numbers, I'm not sure if I should be believing them, or if there's something wrong w/ my probe (or the placement of the probe).
Everything else looks fine.
A few other pieces of information -
1. The tank is a Zeroedge ~80gallon tank. Lots of aeration.
2. I installed a Geo calcium reactor this weekend, but turned it off when I started to see fluctuation. Turning it off had no effect.
3. Yes, I have a protein skimmer.
4. Topoff is RO/DI water, currently pumping through an empty GEO kalkwasser reactor.
Any ideas/explanation would be greatly appreciated. I had thought I was approaching a point where things were stable, but it appears that may not be the case. That, or my pH probe is very unhappy.
Thanks for your assistance,
John
