High Ph

I have been running a high Ph level for about a year now. It averages
9.03. This level is by test kit and also digital probe. All other levels are
where they should be, Ammonia - 0, Ni - 0, Na - 0, Ca 350 - 375. No
additives or supplements used.
I have a fairly complex setup. 120 gal reef with crushed coral base - 55
gal FO bare bottom - 20 gal refugium/6 DSB - 12 gal sump w/2 skimmers.They
are all connected. About 150# LR. I'm using RO/DI water supply. Any
thoughts?
Thanks, Dave

I doubt the reading you are getting from your test kit and
the digital probe are correct. It is simply too high. Do
you use Kalkwasser to replace evaporated water?

Marc


David Young wrote:

I have been running a high Ph level for about a year now. It averages
9.03. This level is by test kit and also digital probe. All other levels are
where they should be, Ammonia - 0, Ni - 0, Na - 0, Ca 350 - 375. No
additives or supplements used.
I have a fairly complex setup. 120 gal reef with crushed coral base - 55
gal FO bare bottom - 20 gal refugium/6 DSB - 12 gal sump w/2 skimmers.They
are all connected. About 150# LR. I'm using RO/DI water supply. Any
thoughts?
Thanks, Dave




--
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Business Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com
Marine Hobbyist: http://www.melevsreef.com

Marc,
Nope, no additives. Auto water top off system of RO-DI. Salt levels adjusted
as necessary. Would it be common for the probe and test kit to be
consistentantly high together? I have checked the calibration of the probe
with 10.0 test solution and it checks O.K. I will locate a new test kit and
check it with that.
Thanks,
Dave
"Marc Levenson" wrote in message
om...
I doubt the reading you are getting from your test kit and the digital
probe are correct. It is simply too high. Do you use Kalkwasser to
replace evaporated water?

Marc


David Young wrote:

I have been running a high Ph level for about a year now. It averages
9.03. This level is by test kit and also digital probe. All other levels
are
where they should be, Ammonia - 0, Ni - 0, Na - 0, Ca 350 - 375. No
additives or supplements used.
I have a fairly complex setup. 120 gal reef with crushed coral base -
55
gal FO bare bottom - 20 gal refugium/6 DSB - 12 gal sump w/2
skimmers.They
are all connected. About 150# LR. I'm using RO/DI water supply. Any
thoughts?
Thanks, Dave




--
Personal Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com/oanda/index.html
Business Page: http://www.sparklingfloorservice.com
Marine Hobbyist: http://www.melevsreef.com

"David Young" wrote in message news:zPUhd.346600$MQ5.261894@attbi_s52...
Would it be common for the probe and test kit to be
consistentantly high together? I have checked the calibration of the probe
with 10.0 test solution and it checks O.K. I will locate a new test kit and
check it with that.

Have you used probe to test water taken outside of the tank?
It might be some stray voltage interfering with your probe.
Put enough water into a plastic cup and remeasure pH with a probe.

I have checked the calibration of the probe
with 10.0 test solution and it checks O.K.

Most probes use two point calibration, get a 7.0 solution and calibrate using
the two. I cant find the article at the moment, but I believe it was on
reefkeeping.com or one of the monthly online mags. It was for pH probe
maintenance and goes into pretty heavy detail as to how they work.
~John

"David Young" wrote in message
news:zPUhd.346600$MQ5.261894@attbi_s52...
Marc,
Nope, no additives. Auto water top off system of RO-DI. Salt levels
adjusted
as necessary.

Try checking your RO/DI water. DI resins are called "mixed" resins. One
resin replaces all cations such as Ca2+ and Na+ with acidic H+. The other
replaces anions such as Cl- with alkaline OH-. In a balanced resin the H+
and OH- neutralise each other instantly to form water. However resins can
become unbalanced for various reasons. The efficiency goes down and the PH
swings one way or the other. The PH from your DI resin water could be high
and has basically destroyed your tanks buffering capacity over time.

The way we can tell when a resin has gone bad in an industrial setting is
because the water smells fishy. Of course that doesn't work with an
aquarium :-)

Robert

I checked the Ph of the RO-DI. It is not extremly high but I am seeing a
difference when I checked it between the probe and test kit readings. The
probe is reading 7.7 while the test kit shows 8.2. Odd they would both show
a much closer,but higher reading in the tank water. I will be buying a new
test kit and also following the recommended calibration steps for the probe,
outlined in the previous post, before I attempt to change anything else.
Thanks for the assistance offered so far.
Dave
"Robert Cadieux" wrote in message
...

"David Young" wrote in message
news:zPUhd.346600$MQ5.261894@attbi_s52...
Marc,
Nope, no additives. Auto water top off system of RO-DI. Salt levels
adjusted
as necessary.

Try checking your RO/DI water. DI resins are called "mixed" resins. One
resin replaces all cations such as Ca2+ and Na+ with acidic H+. The other
replaces anions such as Cl- with alkaline OH-. In a balanced resin the H+
and OH- neutralise each other instantly to form water. However resins can
become unbalanced for various reasons. The efficiency goes down and the
PH
swings one way or the other. The PH from your DI resin water could be
high
and has basically destroyed your tanks buffering capacity over time.

The way we can tell when a resin has gone bad in an industrial setting is
because the water smells fishy. Of course that doesn't work with an
aquarium :-)

Robert

You can not check the pH of RO/DI water, with a pH meter or a test kit. The pH, what ever
it reads, is meaningless and gives false readings, as there is basically nothing in the
water for them to respond to or measure.

"This level is by test kit and also digital probe"

1. I doubt it is both the probe ad kit. Check a fresh batch, a L or so, of seawater mix
with just tap water or distilled to see what you get.

2.What is your Alk. If you have one of those batches with a very high Alk it might be
pushing your pH up

3. There may be a spot in your tank where the calcareous substrate is dissolving, pushing
up the pH

4. Heavy algae growth can bring the pH up to 9 with no problem, as the algae can remove
the CO2, which causes an immediate shift in the pH to go up. This usually will also show a
low Alk, as the plants now feed off the CO3-- and HCO3- for their CO2 needs. It is the
reason behind Macro-Algae and FW planted tanks to use CO2 injection. Poor circulation and
gas exchange can make it worse, as the diffusion of ambient air CO2, into the tank, will
not be able to keep up with the plant demand for CO2



"The PH from your DI resin water could be high
and has basically destroyed your tanks buffering capacity over time."

There is no alk or buffering in RO/DI water, all of it has been removed. RO/DI units
automatically destroy all your "buffering capacity"



Boomer

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ooop's got sent out to soon, not finished

One needs to be careful with the word "buffering capacity, as seawaters maximum buffering
capacity ( Bc) is at a pH of 6 and 9. In this hobby the term buffering capacity is used
incorrectly, but is used to mean alk or the acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) of the water.
**If** the pH was high, due to RO/DI water, it could only be due OH-, which is part of
your alk. High pH is almost always accompanied by a high Alk, unless we are dealing with a
very heavy planted tank, so how could it destroy it ?

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The
probe is reading 7.7 while the test kit shows 8.2. Odd they would both show
a much closer,but higher reading in the tank water.

I might be mistaken, but I think pH probe's work on some sort of exponential
curve. That's the reason for two point calibration, you check two places on
that curve to make it isnt bending faster or slower. Somewhere online there's
a diagram or table that plots what inaccuracies you would have if you used 4.0
and 7.0 to calibrate a probe that was measuring a 7.0+ solution versus using
the correct 7.0 and 10.0 calibration. I can't remember, but I think it was
somewhere in between 5-10% it could be off by.
~John