Low PH problem for my reef aquarium.

Hi all, I am what you would call new to reefing and this forum, found you by searching for acan coral photos. Been trying my hardest for 5 months from cycling a 180litre with sump, so I will try to not sound totally dumb with what I am asking, What's been going on is I test for PH at least 3 times weekly and cannot get it to stay above 7.8, I use kalk up it goes and back down from a max of 8.2 with in hours, what can I do to correct this. Thanks
Parameters are>
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 9 ppm
Temperature 25c
Salinity 0.23

Finfun wrote:Hi all, I am what you would call new to reefing and this forum, found you by searching for acan coral photos. Been trying my hardest for 5 months from cycling a 180litre with sump, so I will try to not sound totally dumb with what I am asking,  What's been going on is I test for PH at least 3 times weekly and cannot get it to stay above 7.8, I use kalk up it goes and back down from a max of 8.2 with in hours, what can I do to correct this. Thanks  
Parameters are>
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 9 ppm
Temperature 25c
Salinity 0.23
 

Have you checked your test is right Try another brand or a mates. Couldn't hurt

Never gave that a thought so I will get that done, maybe at the lfs, thanks dazza

No win Dazza, compared with a hanna checker and red sea,still close to same on all tests?
Any other ideas.

High finfun, first up where do you come from? You know, what town and state!

Okay I live in Stanthorpe, I don't know why that would have anything to do with this, buy hey any help I can get would be appreciated.

This is awesome, I got the wife to leave the space heater off in my fish room and the window open with an extra heater in the water and when tested after work, the PH is 8.1 now. My aquarium came with a refugium but the plants in there do really bad by getting covered by red slimy stuff all the time so I think it doesn’t work. When getting the PH checked at the lfs, I bought a hanna checker on their advice for important phosphate testing? Is that correct do I need to test phosphate? Hey is gas heating any problem that’s our home heating

Whats your phosphate level like? you sound like you need to use some GFO macroalgae isnt the best at pulling down high levels, best off just putting in some media be it GFO or a Ion Exchange Resin for phosphate.
Im a fan of the ion exchange (chemi pure, purigen, macropore etc) I think its really amazing stuff it will almost zero your levels in a few days but if it gets too full or the levels change really dramatically in the tank they can dump all the bad ions they have absorbed, just means you need to be on changing it really.
Blue Life Clear Fx Pro is a good product if you just want to buy one thing, it has ion exchange resin for PO4 and NOx and I think carbon aswell, saves you buying both resins, but I wouldn't regenerate it (like you can ion exchange resins on their own) (guppys has it I see your in an odd spot)

GFO is great too and it will get silicates out of the water, not much else will do this, there is no ion exchange for Si, once again it has some flaws of overfilling and releasing, just change it....

These chemical solutions really are cheating, and it dont compare too a good fuge/ATS but if your PO4 is out of wack its very hard for it to balance, in order for a biofilm (the bacterial growth) to be made or algae to grow there needs to be a ratio of available materials for life to develop, the common one followed is the REDFEILD ratio, which is the stoichiometric ratio of elements needed to build phytoplankton 106:16:1 C:N:P
Now this is why people carbon dose (VODKA VINAGER BIOPELLETS) it supplements the Carbon in the ratio and the N and P come from the high levels of waste/nitrate/phosphate etc.
But think about it your tank has Zero nitrate, so how can anything fix phosphate other then binding/dropping it out of solution with media/chemical (I think this is why you get cyanno, it needs less N)

You could dose nitrate but id just drop everything to close to zero with media, let bacteria colonies develop and overtime you wont need media

Hey guys, got some rowaphos formula409 and PH is stable liquidg, many thanks