Ph Dropping At Night

[lenny]

hi you have seen my reef tank on members tanks. I have noticed lately that the PH is dropping down at night after lights go out. is this an imbalance in the water chemistry or something else. every thing in the tank look healthy and the hard corals are growing like mad. the tank has been set up for three years. this is the test results


sp/gravity 1025-6
calcium 400-420
mgnesium 1260
phosphate 0.008
kh 6-7
alkalinity 2.5-3
no2 0
no3 0.5
ammonia undetectable

daytime PH slowly climbs to 8.1-8.2 just before lights go out.

night time reading at 4.00 in the morning was 7.8.
have added some kent super dkh reef buffer to try to get the kh a bit higher but this does not seem to have done any thing.do any of you have any idea,s as to what is needed. the main tank is 60x24x24 and holds 110 galls and the sump holds another 20 gals. i use a protien skimmer turbo flottor 1000 .an aqua medic calcium reactor (out put kh is 30 dkh). rowa phos, kalkwasser stirrer via auto top up.Could this just be downto the load on the system as ther are quite a few large hard corals in it.:bow: lenny

[kim]

Wow !

:wub:

I wouldn't dream of advising you, that is a gorgeous tank, why are you bothered ?

For the record only, pH does tend to rise at night because living oranisms respire and give off CO2. That makes the water a bit more acidic. In the daytime, algae and stuff eat the CO2 so the effect doesn't show up.

Don't change a thing, IMHO,

kim

[NewMan]

Once again I would like to add that it's a sweet tank :wub:

PH will drop after lights out due to the reasons stated by kim. It's a natural process in seawater that is encountered widely.

The trick is to make it more stable and do no let it fluctuate too much :D There are ways & means to do so. Dripping kalk at night, using a kick @ss skimmer, good air circulation etc etc.

Though your PH fluctuate too much for my liking, but it is still within range.

FYI, I just install a deltec AP902 in my system...my PH fluctuate only within 0.1 day & night :D :D It used to be within 0.2-0.3.

:cheers:

Nick

[wayne g]

nothing to add apart from praing your tank...very nice!
:bow: :bow:

[coling]

What a gorgeous tank, it (ph) doesn't seem to be bothering things in there.

[fire999]

If you are having bother , we could always swap tanks :idea: :idea:



:bow: Lovely tank :bow:

[JasandJules]

Well, a reverse lit refugium may help balance the PH overnight a little bit.

But, as above, that is a stunning tank which doesn't look too bothered by the PH drop !!

[lenny]

thanks guys . lenny

[Shinken]

Very nice tank! Just a quick question.

On the left dide of your tank are some sps right next to the output of a stream, does this affect them at all???

[lenny]

Originally posted by Shinken@Mar 5 2005, 19:35
Very nice tank! Just a quick question.

On the left dide of your tank are some sps right next to the output of a stream, does this affect them at all???
yes they do. they seem to grow thicker where strong water current is. it does them no harm what so ever. the corals have grown from small frags into what you see now and the pumps have been in same place .lenny