Cycle complete! But what to do with the pH?

[danny zubot]

Hi Jess, If you wan to make something to raise your buffer do this:
Take a small box of baking soda and spread it out on a cookie sheet. Then bake it in your oven on 350 degrees for 2 hours.

You have now just made washing soda which raises the PH when added to your tank, make sure you test the washing soda first by adding it to a water sample from your tank. Only a small amount at a time is needed to raise your ph and it is only meant as a temperary solution. Remember this, 6 parts baking soda to 1 part washing soda becomes a neutral mixture. But added in this ratio can buffer your alkality without affecting your PH.

[Beverly]

Do you have substrate in this tank? If not, swish all the rock around in the water which will loosen any dead debris. Once the debris has settled, siphon it out and do a major water change, say, 30-50%. If you have any mechanical filtration in the tank, clean it thoroughly in the outgoing changewater. If you have a sump, siphon out any debris from it as well.

Once you have all the crud out and the water change performed, test pH just before lights on and just before lights out. This will give you your daily pH swing. If the swing is over .2, for instance 7.8 to 8.0, you will want to drip kalk into your system each night to to keep the swing from becoming larger.

The washing soda idea is a good one. It will raise pH, but will also raise your KH. You are aiming to have a KH between 8 and 11 dKH.

If you get your KH between 8 and 11 dKH, and your pH is still low, I would say you have high CO2 levels in your tank room and the only way to raise pH in this instance is to get more fresh air, which will contain O2, into the room. High levels of CO2 will depress pH.

While you're at it, test calcium levels. You want to have about 450 ppm calcium.

More test kits, you ask??????!!!!!??? Yup

[Son Of Skyline]

What kind of test kit are you using to test pH? Have you tried testing pH with another test kit or monitor?

[jess128]

I am using Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Saltwater Master liquid test kit. I'll take my water into Aquarium Illusions tomorrow and get them to test everything including alk and calcium levels. I broke down and put some pH up solution in the tank. It worked, pH is now 8.2 and everything else is still great.

Bev, I will check the pH range as well, I never thought about doing that. I did check it at night yesterday and it was the same as during the day. I'm using a canister filter and it is being cleaned every week, I'll do that tonight as well.

If everything goes well at AI tomorrow I think I'll try some clownfish on saturday. I have an airator in the tank, so O2 is being pumped in during the day. There is a class hood over most of the tank though, so I'm sure that isn't helping anything (my dad made me do it ) I'll be sure to aclimate slowly and carefully. Thanks for all your help!