More ph questions
I found this post rather than starting a new thread. Most searches I've done have people asking how to raise their ph. I seem to have the opposite problem, especially when I drip kalkwasser less so when I just top off with RODI. I had a dkh reading of ~ 11 and calcium was 415 but ph was 8.6. If I stop the kalkwasser the dkh goes down to about 8 and the ph goes into the 8.2 range but my calcium drops below 375. My lfs recommended calcium tablets to keep that at 400+ and just use RODI to replace evaporation. I have been adding calcium now for a couple weeks and it seems to work. My kalkwasser mix is 2 gallons water, 4 tsp lime, 4 oz vinegar. Sorry to ramble but I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I use kalkwasser my calcium and alkalinity stay at good levels but my ph gets way too high - like 8.6 to 8.8. I've not been able to find anywhere on the forum (OK, I only looked for 20 minutes) about what harm high ph can do to a reef aquarium. My livestock seems to be thriving - lawnmower, blue tang, 2 clowns, 2 pajama cards, shrimp, snails, etc. AND a spiny urchin that used to be black as coal and now looks like a skunk - white and black - but it's not losing any spines. I have one hard brain coral that doesn't seem to be doing as well. It is less colorful or "paler" than it used to be and it used to have what look like small polyps come out in the morning sort of like it swelled up which my lfs told me was a good time to feed it but only about once a week. Anyway, it doesn't do that anymore and the only thing I can think of is the ph being to high. So to make a short story very long - what bad things can happen with high ph and should I just forget the kalkwasser?
