Good morning...PH??

[Becki67]

Good morning....we made some changes and it caused some changes. We added 27 lbs of live rock yesterday and 2 more lbs of live sand. I tested the water this morning first thing and the parameters have changed now. The ammonia is still at 0, the nitrites went up to .25 and the ph is down to 7.4. The nitrates jumped just a little bit. I'm assuming that's because we added the live rock. I'm worried about the ph.

Last night my BF added a gallon of water (against my advice) to get the salinity down. Did that do it?

I read some articles and I still can get a straight answer on what to do to get the Ph back up. Is there a good way to do this?

 

[cthegame]

You can buy PH buffer at your LFS. What kind of water did he add? was it tap water?

 

[Gooseman]

if your nitrites and nitrates are up the i would do a water change ... just to be safe ... it cant hurt anything

 

[IraqVeteran]

since the tank is still brand new you can wait a couple of days and see if there are any changes to the ph. If not, then I would just do the water changes to get the water balanced. You can even do like 20-25% twice a week for a week or two if need be. That is if all you have is just the LR and LS. You need to make sure, especially when you have critters in the tank, that any water change water that you add to the tank has the same temp, salinity or SG, ph as the main tank water.

 

[Gooseman]

sorry i guess i didnt read your post correctly ... if your tank is new then its just cycling and i would just wait it out ... i am assuming since it is new that surely there isnt any live stock in there correct? then patience is the key here ... everything will spike then drop off to nothing ... i would then start your water changes.

 

[fatman]

Your pH is going to be lower at night and for several hours after the lights go on. The levels of carbon dioxide increase at night and this creates carbonic acid which lowers the pH. Also dieing organics will lower the pH. This will commonly go on for a week to ten days after adding live sand or live rock. A gallon of fresh water will not make any huge difference to your tanks well being, as in no harm done. You are probably losing that much to evaporation every day if you have good circulation and any lighting. Evaporation should be topped off daily with fresh water. Likely your pH will be quite a bit higher if you test it right before all the lights go out. That is assuming your running lights or are getting some good light to the tank. If not that is a pretty low pH, but I would still check it later in the day. If the pH is still that low I would check the alkalinity and adjust that if needed, before attempting to adjust the pH. If the alkalinity is fine the pH can be adjusted with something like SeaChem Reef Builder. If the alkalinity is lo adjusting it oftens brings the pH up at the same time. There are many preparations sold to raise the Alkalinity. I would make sure the pH reading is accurate first though by taking a sample of water to a LFS or Ph testing.

 

[reeffreak]

Lets see,you have a little bit of nitrite.If that is indeed a correct reading then adding the live rock and sand cause a very small cycle.It's normal to get low pH during that period.Check the pH again after nitrite returns to zero.Because pH tends to drop when the lights are off for sometime,check pH when the lights been on for several hours til right after the lights goes out.

If you are still having low pH than you can do water changes to raise it.Check the makeup water to see if it's set at 8.2-8.3.I highly recommend you start testing pH with calcium and akalinity too because all three relates to one another.Akalinity is a test for your systems abilility to maintain pH.There are ''buffering'' products out there.Some will raise pH and akalinity and others just akalinity.Seachem sells a product called ''Marine Buffer'' and there is another product called "Proper 8.2'' sold at Petsmart and many other pet stores.Even baking soda works but I'm not sure of the dosage amount.