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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Why is my Ph dropping?


Gamby

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I filled my tank yesterday for the first time (Fusion10). I used Red Sea Coral Pro salt and my Ph was 8.35. In 24 hrs my Ph is down to 8.30. This is measured with my Apex controller. The only thing that I have added to the tank so far is my Caribsea live sand ( yesterday a couple hours after mixing my salt).

 

Is this normal? I have read that the Ph will drop over night but it continuesbto drop this morning.

 

Any suggestions?

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I suggest you don't worry too much about pH right now. It's neat that you have the probe and all, but pH will fluctuate and you can drive yourself crazy trying to hit some pH magic number.

 

The proper way to guage a tank's pH is to take two tests, one right before lgihts on and one right berfore light out. These will be your low and high readings. Average the two.

 

Again, don't worry about it. I would not even bother testing pH right now unless there is some issue or reason to.

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I suggest you don't worry too much about pH right now. It's neat that you have the probe and all, but pH will fluctuate and you can drive yourself crazy trying to hit some pH magic number.

 

The proper way to guage a tank's pH is to take two tests, one right before lgihts on and one right berfore light out. These will be your low and high readings. Average the two.

 

Again, don't worry about it. I would not even bother testing pH right now unless there is some issue or reason to.

 

Thanks for responding!

 

Should I be worried if the pH keeps dropping? It is down to 8.15 this morning. (2 days after filling my tank for the first time and adding the sand)

 

I am planning to add my live rock this week and I do not know if I should be worried about the pH before I add the rock. Should I do a partial water change before adding the rock to bring the pH back up?

 

Please let me know what you think.

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Let the tank settle out. The reason the ph is dropping is high co2 in your house

I was planning to add live rock this week. Should I hold off?

 

Ph chsbges with temperature. To truly be accurate you need to account for temp.

My temperate is maintained within a (1) degree differential with the Apex controller. Should I turn on the pH temperate compensation feature that the Apex has built in?

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12_egg_Omelette

If you want to be super precise yeah. But I'm not sure it matters that much. When I'm ph-ing buffers in a lab I calibrate with a temperature probe in my solutions.

 

I'm not quite sure the quality of ph probe you're using to? Have you calibrated it before? Drift is pretty normal and once you calibrate between three solutions you've get a calibration curve and it should be able to compensate.

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If you want to be super precise yeah. But I'm not sure it matters that much. When I'm ph-ing buffers in a lab I calibrate with a temperature probe in my solutions.

 

I'm not quite sure the quality of ph probe you're using to? Have you calibrated it before? Drift is pretty normal and once you calibrate between three solutions you've get a calibration curve and it should be able to compensate.

I am using the standard grade Apex probe. I set it up this past Saturday and calibrated it using the 7.01 and 10.01 solutions that were provided with my Apex system.

 

On Saturday, I added the salt to may RO/DI water that had been running in the tank for 24 hours and was at 78 deg. A couple hours later I added my sand and then an hour or so later I installed and calibrated the probe.

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As has already been mentioned, your PH will fluctuate throughout the day based a number of factors.. the best way to be happy with your PH readings is to take the probe out of your tank and forget about it. Keep your levels that matter in check and PH will handle itself.

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I have found it more beneficial to concentrate on keeping my DKH at 9 rather than focusing on the ph. I used to have the apex and kept an eye on the ph which was nice just in case some corals were not doing so well or if I lost a fish. I could always go back and check the readings to see if I could possibly attribute it to large ph swings. Really the only time I had large swings was from dosing alk too fast due to me not keeping up with my testing DKH :D

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