Low PH High Alk, Please Help Me.

[jahorgos]

My tank is 3 weeks old. I can't seem to hold a descent PH. Everything out there seems to drive up alkalinity which for me is already 2 points higher then I would prefer. My tank is 100 gallon in wall with 40 gallon sump. I have the room vented for heat build up and I ran an outside air line in to my skimmer to help keep oxygen in the tank (asm g3).

I don't know what to do. There is 150lbs of live rock and some very happy looking star polyps. I want this to be an SPS dominated reef but right now I'm scared to even put a fish in it.

What can I use to raise PH and keep it there with out raising my alk?

PH: 7.7-7.75
Alk: 10.3
Calc: 460
Mag: 1400
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Ammonia: 0

[seanfhaynes]

http://www.aquavitro.com/Products/balance.html
I am in the same boat but this stuff works pretty good

[seanfhaynes]

if you have a sump you can do a reverse lighting schedule, to help with photo synthesis.
Try moving your sand around (it gets coated with stuff and then that part of your live filter does not work as well)
add macro algea to your sump ( helps to cut the CO2 levels)
add a fan to your water surface to break it up.

I have found that dosing can help to bring your water back into range but usually there is an issue that needs to be taken care of to correct it.

Heck it could even be your salt

[jahorgos]

Thanks for the help I will try this. I do not have a fan over my tank but I do get a lot of water movement on the surface from my 2 vortech mp40ws.

As for dosing I'm only dosing calcium at the moment and microbacter 7. The salt I'm using is reef crystals.

As for the balance product I went through a bottle in 2 days. Maybe I need more?

Any other thoughts / suggestions?

[seanfhaynes]

are you getting the ph reading from your probe? I had read before that there was some issue with conductivity between the probe and the temp probe causing invalid readings. have you checked with a test kit?

[jahorgos]

Interesting but sadly yes I have checked with a test kit to verify. That was one of my first trials.

[jimsplace]

Are you dosing kalk? If not, kalk will help raise your PH. I had cronic low PH and dosing kalk as my top off water solved the problem. It should not raise your alk, but will tend to stabilize both the alk and calc numbers. Depending on your salt mix and what corals you have in your tank the alk numbers may go down with time. 10.3 is not that high and I wouldn't be concerned at that level. With the amount of corals I have in my tank I have to supliment 2 part along with my kalk to keep the numbers up.

[flamron]

I would leave your PH as it is. If you start to see detrimental effects to coral, then I'd start to worry. Until then, maintain as stable parameters as you can for your Alkalinity and Calcium and Magnesium.

For SPS:
Calcium around 425
Alkalinity - 8-12 dkh
Magnesium - 1300-1500
PH - I don't worry about this number until I start seeing something bad.
Nitrate - 10 or lower
Phosphate - .03 or lower

I definitely would not dose anything for PH (not balance anyways - Kalk is a good way to maintain your Alk and keep your PH up, but I wouldn't start that until you start getting some calcifying demand in your tank). Try opening up some windows in the fish room or near the fish room to see if that has any effect on your PH. You may just have a build up of CO2 (yes, I read that you are pumping fresh air to your skimmer). Test your PH after a few hours and see where it is. If it is still low, then so be it. As long as everything in your tank (once you put something in there) is healthy, I'd not be too concerned with PH.

[cindyreef]

I am in no way an expert like some incredibly smart people here but I will try to explain:
Your tank is only 3 weeks old! It could be easily still cycling.
One of the main reasons pH drops is the biological activity. Bacteria convert amonia to nitrite, and nitrite to nitrate. A byproduct of this is the formation of acids that will cause the pH to fall. Our salt mixes have buffers that help resist the changes in pH by neutralizing these acids, although the process depletes them. So the buffers in our salt mixes (and additives) dont prevent pH from falling --they only slow it down.
Depending on the bioload this could take days or weeks.
Usually water changes will take care of it.

Are you using a good test kit or monitor? Your tank is very young. If I were you I would allow a few more weeks before I started adding supplements etc. You may find it will raise with a few water changes.
If its still too low then dosing kalk would be a good idea. Dont try to get a "perfect" level although yours right now is a little low.Its MUCH more important to keep it at a stable level, maybe you wont have to dose anything( until your bioload increases) with regular water changes.
Hope this helps.

[jahorgos]

Thanks to everyone for all the advice. I'm going to maintain the parameters and not worry about PH for now and see how it goes. If I don't see any change in the next 4 weeks then I will start playing around with these ideas.

It probably is just biological activity being that my skimmer is pulling some nice stuff out.

[wmilas]

You tank is still cycling. Don't worry about the PH for now. Worry about it after its done cycling and you have Calcium and Alk uptake via calcification.

If its still low then come back and ask because it could be a whole host of issues :)

[rballz]

+1 on the cycle

As my tank progresses through it's cycle the PH has risen from 7.8 to 8.2

I wouldn't worry about it until it's matured some - and then if you insist the PH needs to be higher because your livestock is screaming at you to do so - I would read the many threads on raising PH without dosing.