ph is high

[margaritaville]

An update to my new tank. I added about 45lbs of live rock last Thursaday, which looks great! Had a family emergency over the weekend so I was gone from Sat until Mon and when I got home one of the damsels was really pale and breathing heavy, I tested the water and everything seemed ok, Although today he was laying on his side and quite lifeless so I decided to flush him :( I retested the water again today and my ph was really high. (not sure if i didnt test it right the day before or what. I did a small water change and will retest again tomorrow. Any thoughts to what happened or what I did wrong.
(what i should do)
Also upgraded from my single 40 watt flo to a twin 55 watt which the LFS said I would need for the live rock and any coral I wanted to add. It was $140 bucks but I gave him my 40 watt so he nocked off $40 which sounded like a good deal until I checked out a site that minereefer refered me to.

Thanks again for any help and such a cool site.

 

[minireefer]

margaritaville,
Most likely the addition of the rock brought your PH up.In a new tank your PH will swing back and forth till it is cycled.My guess it would be high nitrite that
that killed the damsel.What are the rest of your water parameters?Also the live rock will cycle your tank.There is a product called cycle that you can add to the tank to help the process along.Becareful with your LFS some times they help sometimes they see $$$.For testing while cycling you can try jungle 5 in 1 strips(nitrite,nitrate,hardness,ALK, and PH)
They wont test ammonia but they test nitrite and if you nitrite is 0 than your ammonia should be to.