D'oh...

[siege]

Ok, so I accientally left my skimmer on while my pump was off a minute, and it overflowed my collection vessel by a couple of gallons. Fortunately I had started making water earlier in the day.

Sadly, I had the water up to temp, SG was right, and I was doing a final buffer to get pH down when I accidentally added two drops of pH test dye to the 5 gallon bucket.

I'm assuming the whole batch of water is ruined now, yes?

 

[kevin]

I don't think it will be ruined, but I wouldn't add it right now

 

[siege]

leave the powerhead on a while and just let it circulate?

 

[george]

I think most of the liquid test kits are Bromothymol Blue which is just a weak acid. Shouldn't be any worse than a few drops of vinegar (if that).

 

[siege]

Yay!

Is vinegar safe for reducing ph?

 

[george]

Within reason (tm), the use of vinegar is reef safe.

That doesn't mean that Brom Blue is. I'm just going by chemical signature.

Safest is to trash the water, but I'm guestimating that it won't matter.

 

[siege]

Well, I have FINALLY gotten pH to apparently 8.2 on the dot.

It appears I got a bad batch of sand, or some that had settled badly, as pH out of the RO unit is 7.0 even, but with salt added was coming out in excess of 8.6. In order to buffer 5 gallons down to about 8.0 required about 40 some drops of pH down (recommended 2 drops per gallon to lower by 0.2). I mixed the sand up in the bucket some more, and the initial pH is now a bit lower (around 8.4-ish), but still too high. The pH Down I got is a lesser of the evils, being sulfuric acid instead of hydrochloric or nitric acid, but I still hate adding sulfur to my tank, and would rather stick with something a tad more natural, until I get the whole issue straightened out.

 

[FutureInterest]

Wow, am I the only one that doesn't match ph and temp for water change?

 

[siege]

FutureInterest;37934 wrote: Wow, am I the only one that doesn't match ph and temp for water change?

Well, I've always tried to match pH... Turns out I had mutiple bad test kits in the beginning, but my salt seems to be too base. I have only recently started matching temp, and only then, really, if I need the water right away. If the water has been pre-made for a day or so and has reached room temp, I don't worry too much about just adding it... Temp has always been very stable in my tank, and never really much of a worry... I just pour the water in at a reasonable rate... I have to admit to being more likely, lately, to pull the heater out of my tank and putting it into my water bucket for about 15 min or so with a powerhead running.

 

[dakota]

Any way you could run some fresh, well rinsed carbon in the new water?

Might help. Don't think it could hurt.

BTW- I do pretty big water changes in my nanos. I'm sunk if I don't match temp fairly close. I don't worry about the pH. Only boost Ca. to maintain the level in the tank.

 

[siege]

That's an interesting idea Dakota, I'll give it a try!