PH question

[MU8ST7ANG]

How does one bring his ph down mine is at about 8.6 right now. So I need to bring it down some what is the best thing to do and where should I be at?

 

[mnat]

1st make sure your test kit is accurate. A lot of panic can occur because a testing kit is old or didn't give an accurate reading. If this is the case, do a larger water change than normal, this is an easy way of bringing PH down.

 

[blange3]

Have you been dosing anything?

 

[MU8ST7ANG]

I dose with purple up and I just put lugos in yesterday.

 

[Boomer]

Well, that PU belongs in the circualr file as it often give false high readings of Alk and at times Ca++. But I would bet you have a testing error as pointed out by mnat. If it is that high there is no need to bring it down, has it will drop fast enough on its own and is the pH we give often for trying to control Dino's.

Why are you dosing Iodine when there is no real need ?

 

[jimroth]

Why are you dosing Iodine when there is no real need ?

Boomer, what's your take on iodine dosing? I used to, then I stopped for a long time, now I see people like Brightwell's promoting it again. What do you think, I still have a lifetime supply of lugols!

 

[MU8ST7ANG]

The test kit is brand new I just got a new one. I put iodine in on recommendation as I was losing some color in sps.

 

[Boomer]

Jim it is fine as long as you can test for it A few years back some lab assays where done on a number of reef tanks and where 2-90 x the Iodine of NSW. IO was almost 5 x out of the bag. Then their are all the foods added that have Iodine. Many like to claim the Iodine is needed for shrimp molts. Well, that is just so much nonsense as shrimp get it form the food they eat. If the iodine is to high it causes them to go into excessive molt cycles = dead shrimp Very high salinity, during shipping, does the same without deaths though, as it is just one molt. This actually helps the shrimp during shipping for some unknown reason.

Brightwell make allot of erroneous claims for the purpose to sell crap.

If your pH is that high don't worry about it. Like I said it will fall fast enough on its own. Just stop adding thujngs that are raising it.

 

[blange3]

Thanks Boomer. that may explain where my peppermints are. They use to come out at feeding time, but have been missing for some weeks.

Iodine was the only thing I've been adding and now I'll drop that one. And no i wasn't testing as the test was a pain and I was aware of how it only tests for one form and that they were not terrbly accurate. I was just dosing Lugols based on the tribal wisdom that shrimp and crabs need it for molting and softies like it.

Weekly water changes and kalk in the topoff is all I do from now on.