PH issues in a Biocube 32

[db366]

I have been dosing with All for Reef for nearly two months. I started for the first month at the dose of 5 ml per day. I check my PH using both a Salifert test kit and through an Apex. I bought a new PH probe and calibrated it using the solution from BRS after week one. My PH has stayed at 7.8 since I started dosing. I looked online and it says that it could be co2 or carbon. I run a bag of chemi pure elite, sized for the tank, as well as purigen. The tank is open top with just a mesh screen over the main display area, the sump is fully open. There is also a powerhead facing upwards causing quite a bit of surface agitation. After the first month of not seeing any results from the All for reef I started upping the dose. I went to 7 ml and saw a slight improvement, getting the ph up to 7.9. After a week of this I have now went up to 9 ml the addition has helped but it is not breaking to 8.

Weekly 4 gallon water changes are done using Reef Crystals.
The tank is mainly LPS with some softies and a few sps (monties)

Is it normal to have to does nearly double the quantity? Should I be looking for anything else that could be causing my ph to stay low? Maybe this product is just inferior?

 

[Steve Burton]

All for Reef is not intended for pH, it is for dosing alkalinity, calcium and trace elements. Do you test for alkalinity and calcium?

 

[db366]

I have checked those numbers as well but not this week. I might be just completely mis understanding the connections between alk and ph. I thought raising the alk raised the ph.


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[jcook54]

In my experience, I still have to do Alk when also dosing All For Reef. It's possible that the Alk levels are low and this can cause the pH to be lower as well. Since you have a pH probe though, do you see the peaks and valleys in the pH that are normal for tanks when the lights are on vs. off? My pH will get down to 7.9 overnight but always bounces back one the lights kick on.

Regarding the additional Alk dose, All For Reef may very well supply Ca & Alk in the perfect balance that corals need BUT Alk gets used by a lot of different critters in the tank and will probably need to be dosed on occasion to get the levels back up. For example, I dose All For Reef in a specific amount during the week and do all of my testing on the weekend. Every weekend the Ca is good but the Alk is a bit lower than I'd like and I bump it up with a manual dose. The advantage to using All For Reef is that it adds a few different elements and I only have to test once a week to make minor adjustments. I still think it's a good product but All For Reef isn't all you need to keep a reef tank healthy.

 

[DiefsReef]

I bought a new PH probe and calibrated it using the solution from BRS after week one.

I wanted to respond to the specific statement above..

Did you acclimate your calibration solution to the tank water before calibrating?
I ask because I had the same issue with low ph on two of my tanks and had calibrated several times before and was reading low 7.6-7.8 almost always.
I read another thread somewhere and the person talk about acclimating the solution in his sump. I re-calibrated the ph probes after warming in the sump for a while and now I am reading 8.0 and above!

Worth a try before you spend to much time trying to correct with chemicals.

 

[db366]

I wanted to respond to the specific statement above..

Did you acclimate your calibration solution to the tank water before calibrating?
I ask because I had the same issue with low ph on two of my tanks and had calibrated several times before and was reading low 7.6-7.8 almost always.
I read another thread somewhere and the person talk about acclimating the solution in his sump. I re-calibrated the ph probes after warming in the sump for a while and now I am reading 8.0 and above!

Worth a try before you spend to much time trying to correct with chemicals.

I did not. But I bought extra packets just in case so I am going to give that a go.

 

[db366]

In my experience, I still have to do Alk when also dosing All For Reef. It's possible that the Alk levels are low and this can cause the pH to be lower as well. Since you have a pH probe though, do you see the peaks and valleys in the pH that are normal for tanks when the lights are on vs. off? My pH will get down to 7.9 overnight but always bounces back one the lights kick on.

Regarding the additional Alk dose, All For Reef may very well supply Ca & Alk in the perfect balance that corals need BUT Alk gets used by a lot of different critters in the tank and will probably need to be dosed on occasion to get the levels back up. For example, I dose All For Reef in a specific amount during the week and do all of my testing on the weekend. Every weekend the Ca is good but the Alk is a bit lower than I'd like and I bump it up with a manual dose. The advantage to using All For Reef is that it adds a few different elements and I only have to test once a week to make minor adjustments. I still think it's a good product but All For Reef isn't all you need to keep a reef tank healthy.

That's just it, the PH is nearly perfectly stable. From the apex it goes from 7.82-7.95. This fluctuation is not a night/day thing, it usually ramps up about an hour or two after I dose and falls throughout the day/night until I dose again.