drm
Aquarium Advice Regular
HI--
Just finished a second cycle with my 30 gal tank, second cycle occurred with addition of my live rock. My primary question is that my ph now seems to hover at about 7.9 and is not correcting. (checking 10am or so)
Using IO salt (however 3 months ago actually started with another brand, Red Sea maybe? and my PH was always 8.2, and was initially with tap water). I changed salt brands a few days before cycling with my live rock, and I did a lot of water changes during the cycle with the new salt. Not sure if the salt change or the cycle forced the ph down, but my pre-mixed salt is only about 8.0 also. I'm hearing from people to not add buffers, etc... I did try it some but would only get a temporary increase and back down later.
Tank has 3" sand, 30# live rock, 20# established base rock, cleaning crew, no fish.
I have lots of water flow/current. I was running carbon but I took it out about a week ago (for now). I'm not running a protein skimmer yet because I haven't figured out how to put it together, but hope to have it in soon. (Bought it from someone else with no instructions.)
I have Temp 80, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates about 7.5
Ca=400 or so, Phos=0.25 (0 in pre-mixed water), Alk="high" although I don't have a number.
Have done tests with two different brands and received similar results.
Last... I don't have a RO unit yet, but I am using DI water. While I do plan to add an RO unit based on everyone's recommendations, I'm not sure how that would improve the PH over the DI water?
Thanks for the wealth of information on this site! and thanks for your help!
Just finished a second cycle with my 30 gal tank, second cycle occurred with addition of my live rock. My primary question is that my ph now seems to hover at about 7.9 and is not correcting. (checking 10am or so)
Using IO salt (however 3 months ago actually started with another brand, Red Sea maybe? and my PH was always 8.2, and was initially with tap water). I changed salt brands a few days before cycling with my live rock, and I did a lot of water changes during the cycle with the new salt. Not sure if the salt change or the cycle forced the ph down, but my pre-mixed salt is only about 8.0 also. I'm hearing from people to not add buffers, etc... I did try it some but would only get a temporary increase and back down later.
Tank has 3" sand, 30# live rock, 20# established base rock, cleaning crew, no fish.
I have lots of water flow/current. I was running carbon but I took it out about a week ago (for now). I'm not running a protein skimmer yet because I haven't figured out how to put it together, but hope to have it in soon. (Bought it from someone else with no instructions.)
I have Temp 80, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates about 7.5
Ca=400 or so, Phos=0.25 (0 in pre-mixed water), Alk="high" although I don't have a number.
Have done tests with two different brands and received similar results.
Last... I don't have a RO unit yet, but I am using DI water. While I do plan to add an RO unit based on everyone's recommendations, I'm not sure how that would improve the PH over the DI water?
Thanks for the wealth of information on this site! and thanks for your help!