pH increasing, alk decreasing?

charliedarling

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Big newb, running my first reef!

Have had it running about 2 months (I got it secondhand - it was running with the previous owner so it’s not a brand new tank by any means)

pH is up near 8.81 and alk has gone all the way down to 7.8 or so.

pH started out near 7.8 at setup and alk at its highest was over 11.

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Considering that I have mostly Macroalgae starting to take off in the tank I can sort of see how this makes sense - increasing respiration and CO2 consumption would drive the pH up, and being that I have Macroalgae varieties that calcify as they grow (halimeda sp), and a chunk of branching coraline algae I can understand why alk consumption would go up.

I have not changed any of my dosing - it’s been consistent (1.5ml/day all-for-reef in 8 gallon nano).

I suppose my question is - at what point does my pH start to stabilize? Will it? I’d hate to stress my clowns and inverts out with such a high pH. I’m testing with a freshly calibrated digital Hanna pH checker (maybe testing error?).

Anyways, any advice or 2 cents would be appreciated if you wanted to throw any my way
 

danreef55

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Disregard your alk is at 11 ........I suggest recalibrating your probe. A PH of 11 would be fatal to almost all tank inhabitants.
 
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charliedarling

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Disregard your alk is at 11 ........I suggest recalibrating your probe. A PH of 11 would be fatal to almost all tank inhabitants.
I’m using a Hanna checker, which I can agree there could be some error there. Probably not enough to be problematic. Considering some tanks run a dKH at 12 I would have to kindly disagree that 11 is fatal.
 

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