Swing alk or swing ph

[mginster]

So I have been focusing on adjusting my Alk/CA dosing times to be during non-photo period. I have tightened my Ph swings to a range of 8.23-8.33. However, I completely glazed over the fact that now I am just swinging Alk. I am swinging it from 8.9-8.3 with it falling at my target 8.5 for max photo period.

Should I adjust my dosing to fall one dose at night and one just before the max photo period to lessen this? However, that will probably swing my Ph to around 8.45ish.

I was also thinking of going with 3 doses per day, 50% in the AM during non-photo, 25% before photo, 25% near tail end.

What times (in relation to photo period) do you all dose? I used to never even test for Ph on my old tank and it was perfectly fine, but now that I have it monitored it gave me another thing to attempt to stabilize.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I don’t believe either of those are excessive and I’m not sure which is more important to stabilize with the dosing tools available.

We discuss that issue at length here:

Alkalinity stability? pH stability? Are they even different?

It is currently the dogma of the reef aquarium hobby to say that alkalinity stability is very important for SPS corals, and that pH is not. Often, the very idea of someone trying to optimize pH is called “chasing numbers” as if that statement by itself shows it to be foolish. Since I have...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[mginster]

Thank you, definitely a read there. I don’t have any issues with stn/Rtn in any montis, acros, digis like I used to when I wasn’t dosing alk properly, so I guess my swings are fine with Ph more stable.

Have you ever heard of someone dosing soda ash in the AM for Ph boost and then dosing baking soda in the PM for just the alk boost? Potentially a way to get both stable?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thank you, definitely a read there. I don’t have any issues with stn/Rtn in any montis, acros, digis like I used to when I wasn’t dosing alk properly, so I guess my swings are fine with Ph more stable.

Have you ever heard of someone dosing soda ash in the AM for Ph boost and then dosing baking soda in the PM for just the alk boost? Potentially a way to get both stable?

People have used a variety of ways of dosing different product combinations to try to stabilize pH and alk. Most use some type of hydroxide at the high end.

I do not recall any definitive responses from those efforts to claim it was a big improvement.

 

[Doctorgori]

just a thought/ question of semi relevance here, but I’ve always wondered why ( sometimes) corals seem more sensitive to a alk swing than a pH swing or is a scale issue as in a 1pt pH swing is no big deal relative to a full 1dkh alk swing?….

same goes for storms runoff, tides and other environmental factors that change salinities in wild environments…corals don’t wholesale die then

similarly but slightly off topic is how is fish can rapidly change ocean depth and therefore temperature yet we spend all this time floating bags, drip acclimating et et?