baker.shawn

Good luck!

pick up one of those portable O2 bottles and run it in to your skimmer line

Add a co2 scrubber on the air inlet to the skimmer

well it didnt work the highest i got today was 7.7 im starting to think my probe is bad even tho its only about 4 months old and ive recalibrated it 3days ago, when i put it in my top off water it reads 8.1 when i put it in my tank it drops to 7.7...hmmmmm

i considered adding an 02 tank but after posting on RC chemistry forum i realized that it wouldnt really help.

it looks like the next step will be a co2 scrubber but im going to give it a little longer first

What is your salinity and magnesium levels? Unless your home is sealed tighter than a drum and you have 10 beings living in the home driving up CO2 levels, pH isn't something you have to normally worry about. Are you venting the room that the tank is in?

saliliny is kept at 1.024 and Mg last time i checked was 1480

as for venting there is nothing specail for the tank its just in the familyroom there is constant air flow

With all your numbers seemingly where they belong, I would tend to think the pH reading isn't accurate. The room is big, open, and not full of pets? They breathe up oxygen and can be the cause of excess CO2 buildup.

i agree the numbers all seem to be in check...but one must be wrong, the only reason i dont think its my probe is when i put it in my top off it goes to 8.1 i also checked it today in calibration fluid, in pH 4.0 it wend to 3.98 and in pH7.0 it was at 6.99. i continued to leave the 2 large windows open in the room today (one right by the tank) and i also left the air stone in my sump, i think im going to do a large waterchange tomorrow and see what effect that has.

You can't compare it to the freshwater top-off water. If you want to do a test, take a cup of tank water outside, aerate it with a pump and airstone, and then bring it back in for a quick pH measurement. Also, mix up your saltwater and test the newly mixed water's pH and let us know your reading.

It is a nice cool day here only about 17 degrees so all the windows in the house are open, if there is truly a CO2 problem today is the day i will find out, it’s at least been 4 hours of fresh air in the house and my pH is still 7.65. i double checked the probe again using calibration fluid and its spot on.

i made myself a bucket of RODI aerated for about an hour and mixed in the salt, i then let it aerate for about 40 min with periodical stirring before i fine-tuned my salinity i then checked my pH it was 7.9 this doesn’t sound right fresh SW should be more like 8.2 right?? the brand of salt is instant ocean im considering trying out some different brands to see if it helps my problem, im going to continue to let the bucket of water "age" and see if there is any change

p.s the calibration fluid im using is lab grade and came in 500ml bottles, i have been very carefull not to contaminate it, aloquots are portioned out and used fluid is never put back in the bottle it is always discarded, and caps are always sealed very tightly im going to be ordering fresh bottles from Lab depot wednesday just to see if maybe they have "gone bad"

Did you aerate the water indoors or outdoors? A tank that runs 7.7 to 7.9 daily can still support life nicely. What numbers did you measure when you dosed kalkwasser daily?

since it was so nice and cool out today we had all the windows and screen doors open so aeration was done inside i figured there wouldnt really be a diffrence. when i dosed kalkwasser daily my average was about 7.9 but my Alk was off the charts.

tonight about 3 hours after a small waterchange i went to dose Pro skimmer and Aminos i checked my pH and it had climbed to 7.96, im going to continue to leave my skimmer line hooked up to the window and see what were at tomorrow morning!

Have you had any luck with keeping windows open? I noticed my tank was only getting up to 8.05 or so by the end of day. I have since kept a window open near the tank and as I type it (5:51 pm est) my tank is already up top 8.20.

unfortunatly i no, it still hasnt been past 7.9