ph is getting up to 8.55 during the day.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Originally Posted by mos90

i checked my phos and nitrate last night. nitrate was at 8ppm and phos was 0ppb on 2 separate tests on my hanna736. id like to lower nitrate some but raise phos. how would i go about that?

Why do you think you want to raise phosphate?

[mos90]

is it not possible to have phosphate to low?

[Rploaded]

Originally Posted by mos90

i dont see the power modules on the genesis site. what are they? how is the apex able to tell the storm what pump to use?

Sorry I meant to say I use two Apex power expansion modules in conjunction with my Genesis Reef Systems Storm.

It has one outlet on it. I made it a double and then let the apex handle the rest. The storm has amazing built in features and over the top redundancy.

[mos90]

im tring to picture how it can work. not quite understanding how the storm will know what pump to turn on.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Originally Posted by mos90

is it not possible to have phosphate to low?

It is possible, but unless you use GFO or another phosphate binder it is fairly unlikely, and you cannot determine it "is" too low with the Hanna, since that value (2 ppb P), even if you assume it is as accurate as the manufacturer claims, ends up being anywhere between 0.00 and 0.016 ppm phosphate, the higher end of which is not too low.

Unless you see bleached corals or something else to indicate a low P concern, I would not add any.

[mos90]

i have noticed that my brain coral opens up much more when phos is a bit higher.

[mos90]

i added some baking soda last night. i wanted to raise the dkh by .5. i used 1.5 tsp. it did help to lower the ph some.

i thought kalk was considered be phosphate binder.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It may be to some extent, but limewater use not going to drive phosphate too low.

In any case, if you want to experiment, adding more food would be the easiest way to boost phosphate. All foods are loaded with it.

[mos90]

im wondering if my kalk mix is actually 100% saturated. ive noticed the ph of the kalk was around 13. but my alk on both of my tanks is falling. my 125 was 9dkh last week and this week its down to 7. ive had to add 1 tsp of baking soda for the last 2 days. it does help to lower the ph. im going to make up a new batch of saturated kalk and see what happens.

[mos90]

btw mag is at 1300.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It may be saturated and still not able to keep up with the demand, or it may be less than saturated. pH is a very crude way to test it.

How do you make it?

[mos90]

i think i made the mistake of not cleaning the 20gallon container out before making the second batch. i just added more water then more kalk.

normally i just make up 4 -2.5 gallon jugs with 5 tsps in each jug and dump 90% of it into my ato container. i wanted to try this way.

the first batch i made seemed fine. i used 40tsp(.8 cups) and used a 700gph powerhead to mix it up for 2 hours.

for the second i just added 15 more gallons of fresh ro/di and added 30 more tsps.

i should probably clean out the container each time i use it up?

[mos90]

i dont think its saturated because my other tank only has a few corals and could always keep up and now alk is dropping.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Originally Posted by mos90

i should probably clean out the container each time i use it up?

That should have been fine. I rarely clean out my limewater reservoir. Less than once a year.

[mos90]

what setup do u use to pump out your kalk?

[mos90]

i dont think the kalk is keeping up like u said earlier. calcium seems to be ok ar 420ppm but i cant get alk above 7dkh.

ive been using baking soda dosing in the afternoon when the ph is the highest and ive been turning off the ato for about 6 hours from 4-10pm. the ph has been stable from 8.3-8.42 and with doing 2tps of baking soda in some ro water when i get home from work is holding alk around 7.8

i plan to setup automated dosing using a brs 1.1ml dosing pump and my apex. i will dose recipe 2 during the daylight hours to control ph and maintain alk around 8.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That sounds like a good plan.

FWIW, I use a Reef Filler pump on a float switch to dose limewater.

[mos90]

do u dose the lime water directly into the sump? how did u hook up the float switch?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, I dose into a sump near where my skimmer dumps into the sump, causing lots of turbulence.

The float switch I use (an Omega Engineering LV-1201) allows one to send 120v current through it, so it just gets wired in between the plug and the pump.

[mos90]

awesome thanks

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Happy Reefing.

[ianjirka]

Fwiw, I had a similar problem with pH while dozing Kalk. I also have an apex control the kalk top off based on pH (and now whether or not the float valve appears stuck).

First step was to recalibrate the probe. Took my 8.5 down to 8.2. A few months later I'm back to 8.6 (cross checked with two electronic meters this time and a chemical test). Aeration didn't help, beyond the skimmer anyway. At that level I worried about my clam. I ended up trying CO2 injection and its worked really well (so far -- Randy maybe can tell me if it will continue ti be so). It aboidedba large pH spike when I overdosed Kalk a week or so ago at least.

Also if you have a salinity meter, I think saturated Malcolm J's a little over 10us.

How kalk was autocorrected to Malcolm J I dont know, but it cracks me up so I left it in

HTH

[mos90]

ok here is an update.

i made sure the kalk was saturated and cleaned out my ato container with all new kalk.
alk was holding steady at 7.5 dkh with the saturated kalk mix. i have been adding 1.5 tsp of baking soda per day and that is lowing the ph some during the daylight hours and raising alk to 8.

it was working so well i ended up adding a brs 1.1 ml per hour doser using sodium bicarbonate. i set it up on the apex to dose 5.5ml every hour for 10 hours per day during the daylight and turning the ato from 4-10 pm.

so far the ph has been much better from between 8.2 and 8.35.

[davidsuli]

Nice to hear u got it fix, my ph suddenly got stable by its own

[mos90]

my ph seem to be more stable with a little higher alk. 8.5-9dkh.