5.5 Ph in newly established marine tank?

purblind

purblind

1 tank, 2 tanks, 3 tanks, 4tanks...
Aug 22, 2005
58
0
0
Toronto
ca.geocities.com
Is this even possible? I just set up a new tank with a protein skimmer, filter and heater. I added salt(coralife) to my dechlorinated water and got a salinity level of 1.023 at 79F. Then I go to test Ph and it reads 5.5. I used a tetra saltwater testkit. I'm planning to have a FOWLR tank and cycle it with live rock only but am worried about adding fully cured live rock to a tank with such a low Ph. Also tested Kh and got a reading of 9 degrees. The substrate is crushed coral.

So my question is, why such a low Ph and how do I raise the Ph to a suitable 8.2-8.4?
 
That sounds pretty bad, I hope it's just a bad test kit. The buffers in the salt mix should bring it to about 8. Because your alkalinity/KH are still OK, it's not likely that the problem was caused by a whole bunch of acid neutralizing the buffers.

How long has the saltwater been mixing?
 
That's exactly what I thought after I got the salinity up to 1.023. I went and borrowed a friends test kit and it read exactly the same. Around 5.5Ph. The saltwater has been mixing for about 3 days now. I did the setup and mixing Wednesday afternoon. This is all just a little too wierd for me so any help is greatly appreciated.

Don't know what to do. Should I start over again? argh...help
 
My ph was low when I set mine up too, I waited a few days then added Marine Buffer. It worked perfect and now my ph is about 8.2 for my FOWLR. Hope that helps!
 
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