Reef nutrition

Testing ph - is it really necessary?

newfly

newfly

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I have my tank running for slightly more than a year. Alk,ca,mg all within normal range ; 8.6 , 420 & 1360 respectively.

I assume I don’t have to bother with ph as long as my alk is stable. True or false?
 
False, more or less. If everything always goes as planned, and you really "know" that your alk *and* ambient CO2 are stable (how are you monitoring those?), then you don't need to pay attention to pH. But, pH can provide a lot of additional information about the health of the tank, and in particular, can be a very useful "early warning system" if something, somehow, does go wrong.
 
JimWelsh said:
False, more or less. If everything always goes as planned, and you really "know" that your alk *and* ambient CO2 are stable (how are you monitoring those?), then you don't need to pay attention to pH. But, pH can provide a lot of additional information about the health of the tank, and in particular, can be a very useful "early warning system" if something, somehow, does go wrong.
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I don’t monitor CO2 either. I supposed I’m living in the edge.
 
Most people don't monitor CO2. I was making a point. It is very easy to monitor pH. I'm going to guess from your question that you don't have an Apex or other similar controller, since those all usually monitor pH, and I don't think you'd be asking the question if you had one. Something like a Pinpoint pH monitor might be a helpful addition, although you would have to be physically present to see the reading.
 
Pretty interesting, I have never thought about PH and have never really tested it on a regular basis. I have always made the mistake of testing PH manually at my testing testing which is in the garage with the door wide open. This obviously gave me false readings as I always tested about 8.2.

Now that I have an Apex, after calibrating the PH probe, the numbers are 7.8x lights on, and 7.6x lights off. If I remember correctly - below 7.6 and above 8.6 is the danger zone. Now I am trying to raise my PH, as I do agree with others that having a good PH (8.2-8.4?) will help with coral growth.

I setup a temporary line from my skimmer silencer and will see what the results look like tomorrow. I am thinking about outside line, co2 scrubber, or possibly both.
 
I haven't tested or thought about ph until a week or so ago. My reefing mentor (a marine biology major and somewhat considered a mad scientist at his previous jobs) told me early on never to chase ph so I didn't even look at it when I started. I recently bough the Hanna ph checker just cause impulse buying is so real and saw that my tanks downstairs in a bigger open air space were 8.1+ and my tanks up in my master bedroom were 7.8ish (under 8) so I decided to leave my windows open the next day and test again and got 8.1/8.2 for my.upstairs tanks. CO2 levels were much higher in my master bedroom as we spend majority of our time there and create CO2 while sleeping.

In this case testing ph was a good confirmation of what I knew about CO2 levels and how it can effect a tank but without having actually tested my ph level I wouldn't be actively keeping windows open in my master bedroom as often as possible.
 
From what I understand is ph is only a main concern if your a experienced sps reefer or looking for fast growth.
I never paid much attention to any of my parameters except alk salinity. Everything grew ok. In the past few months. I pay more attention to ph alk salinity phos. Growth and coloration is a lot better.
If you follow telegram. His number 1 is Kalk slurry. His ph min is 8.3 then he makes up with alk dos. That’s it.
 
fishy408 said:
Pretty interesting, I have never thought about PH and have never really tested it on a regular basis. I have always made the mistake of testing PH manually at my testing testing which is in the garage with the door wide open. This obviously gave me false readings as I always tested about 8.2.

Now that I have an Apex, after calibrating the PH probe, the numbers are 7.8x lights on, and 7.6x lights off. If I remember correctly - below 7.6 and above 8.6 is the danger zone. Now I am trying to raise my PH, as I do agree with others that having a good PH (8.2-8.4?) will help with coral growth.

I setup a temporary line from my skimmer silencer and will see what the results look like tomorrow. I am thinking about outside line, co2 scrubber, or possibly both.
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7CE9E93F-EC73-4C7C-9F42-B26537D6EC3D.png


I run my PH outside that zone. I use kalkwasser, so I wouldn’t recommend running that high using 2-part.

I think higher PH has a lot of positive benefits for me.
 
From what I've been currently researching, high ph along with high alk, good lighting and high flow can push fast growth in coral. I'll be testing this soon once I setup my new frag tank thanks to @Srt4eric.

If not trying to push coral growth and all other parameters are fine I don't think ph is something you need to worry about. If for some reason you can't keep the other parameters stable or in check then I think ph testing could help diagnosing a potential issue on your reef setup.
 
Arvin R said:
From what I've been currently researching, high ph along with high alk, good lighting and high flow can push fast growth in coral. I'll be testing this soon once I setup my new frag tank thanks to @Srt4eric.

If not trying to push coral growth and all other parameters are fine I don't think ph is something you need to worry about. If for some reason you can't keep the other parameters stable or in check then I think ph testing could help diagnosing a potential issue on your reef setup.
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Here is where I think PH plays an even bigger role. By reducing the energy it takes for the coral to deposit Skelton and rid themselves of the extra hydrogen you reduce stress. Less stress, the more it can live thru the things we don’t see, or can’t control. PH in my experience has resulted in stronger PE, quicker healing, and denser skeleton.
 
Blaise006 said:
No fish in the Frag system, co2 scrubber, and about 2 gallons of kalkwasser a day in a 100 gallon Frag system.

With fish it will run lower, hard to say by how much.
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Did you test what increase the co2 scrubber added? I am testing what would increase PH more 1) running a line outside 20ft or 2) co2 scrubber.

If I can avoid making holes in the wall, that would be a better solution.
 
fishy408 said:
Did you test what increase the co2 scrubber added? I am testing what would increase PH more 1) running a line outside 20ft or 2) co2 scrubber.

If I can avoid making holes in the wall, that would be a better solution.
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When I did 2 part and CO2 scrubber on my reef250, the co2 scrubber brought ph from 7.92-8.17 to 8.1 to 8.3ish.

Never did the co2 scrubber without a ph enhancing additive like 2-part or kalk.

Kalk pulled it up to where it is now when I switched from 2-part.
 
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