pH swing what to do?

[stingythingy45]

Scott,aeiration will directly influence PH.
I suspect the open windows during the day,fan that might come on when the temp gets over 79 deg. could raise PH.
Does you brandy new Apex control powerheads as well?
Do these get shut down or slowed during the night?If they cause surface aggitation this could cause PH to drop more at night also.
Smoking that Cuban cigar and laughing at us poor folk that don't have an Apex yet could cause low PH in that room also.

 

[Scott]

Scott,aeiration will directly influence PH.
I suspect the open windows during the day,fan that might come on when the temp gets over 79 deg. could raise PH.
Does you brandy new Apex control powerheads as well?
Do these get shut down or slowed during the night?If they cause surface aggitation this could cause PH to drop more at night also.
Smoking that Cuban cigar and laughing at us poor folk that don't have an Apex yet could cause low PH in that room also.

OH! The cigars! That's it! And I do tend to to get sloppy with the 25 year Glenmorangie and spill some in the tank throughout the day!


The window has been open, but no fan yet today. Closing windows isn't really an option. It gets right warm in here (my home office) if I close the windows and we'll have other issues.

I do suspect that if I had the window closed, I'd see a similar increase, though maybe a little less. The light is easily the biggest factor. I had the window open a few hours before the light this morning. The rapid increase happens when the light goes on.

The controller could control the powerhead, though it doesn't. I could try turning that off at night to see if that lessens the drop. It is the daytime peak that has me most concerned. I'm going to let it get up into the 8.5's today to see where it goes.

 

[paulthomas]

Brah, I just don't get your brand of humor.

 

[JohnK]

Actually the thing about the windows is that Closing them at night will potentially allow Co2 to accumulate and drive the PH down more, AND opening them in the day will let it rise higher.

Could you try leaving them open day and night the next time it gets a little warmer? (or at least when puffing on the cigars? )

 

[Scott]

Brah, I just don't get your brand of humor.

It's an acquired taste. Kind of like that quarter century Glenmorangie.

Thank God for you and Bob. Otherwise, I'd be here laughing with the Glens all day.

Could you try leaving them open day and night the next time it gets a little warmer? (or at least when puffing on the cigars? )

I will for sure John.

Thanks for the input everybody.

 

[Scott]

Here's a pre-meeting update so you guys can sufficiently deride me...

Yesterday morning I replaced the pH probe with a brand new one. The old one *seemed* to be working when tested against 7 and 10 pH calibration solutions, but it turns out that wasn't the case. How it could be accurate at 7 and 10 but off in the middle will remain a mystery.

Here's the sordid 5-days during this thread. You can see how with the old probe the reading peaked out up above 8.45 where I had the lights turning off for high ph. The saw-tooth patterns are the lights turning off and on for a few hours at the end of the light cycle.

The yellow line is the new probe. Without any calibration, the pH reading adjusted from about 8.15 to 7.85 (!) That was a bit surprising, but I was relieved as the previous behavior shifted down that much would not have been at all concerning.

Being very tired of topping off by hand with fresh water, I decided to turn the kalk top-off back on again. With kalk dripping all day at the evaporation rate, pH topped out at about 8.35 when the lights went out.

At about 3 am I couldn't sleep, so I decided to make sure the new probe was properly calibrated. You can see the calibration where the chart caught one of my tests with the pH 7 solution. The end result was about 0.03 higher as you can see with the little step up in the chart.

As dcforester said, things were fine before I was measuring pH.
And as Steve said, readings above 8.5 are probably bad readings.

Lessons learned...

1. Trust the corals. If they're happy, then parameters are probably good and equipment should be questioned.
2. Trust science. Healthy salt water should just stay in the good pH range unless you're overdosing with something.
3. Don't trust equipment unless you can verify it is correct.
4. I'll be throwing away that old probe and the crappy pH test kit. (Office Space style, with a bat.)

Even though my concern was for nought, I was forced into some research and experimenting that was a great learning experience.

I still want to see if I can lessen the swing. I will probably set things up so that the Kalk top off only happens when the lights are off.

Thanks for all the help. I couldn't have done it without you guys.