Need to raise pH, how fast is safe?

[Floyd R Turbo]

I am working on a FOWLR tank for a friend, 135g w/15 sump so 150g system volume. The pH is 7.4 and KH is about 4 dKH, salinity 32 SG 1.0235 and it's SUPER dirty. No protein skimmer (he's got one on the way) and it's been running for about 3 years. Cyano all over the place. I am going to do a 40 gallon PWC w/IO sea salt and RO water and clean all the Cyano and detrius out. Inhabitants are 1 dog-faced puffer, 1 Yellow Tang, 3 Sergeant Majors. He only has about 40-60 lb of LR. So lots of issue to tackle on this tank.

My question is this: the new water generally runs at a pH of about 8.2-8.4 and KH of about 7 or 8 after the salt is mixed in.

The way I calculate it, if he has 150g and I remove 40, that leaves 110g of 7.4 pH 4 dKH water. If I add 40 gallons of 8.4 pH 8 KH water, and go by a linear mixing calculation, then his pH will raise to 7.6 and KH will raise to just over 5. Is this an acceptable pH swing, or should I raise the pH/KH in his system prior to doing the water change?

I understand and pH is not a linear scale, but KH is. So my calculation may be off and I don't want to throw the pH too much too fast, for obvious reasons. I just went through a calculation taking into consideration the logarithmic nature of pH and figured that the water change will raise the pH to about 7.9, or half a point. Is that acceptable? Or should I just do a 20 gallon change to be safe? That would raise it to 7.7-7.8.

I was planning on dosing his tank with Brightwell Aquatics Alkalin8.3-P today before doing the PWC & cleaning tomorrow. The jar says exactly how much it will change the KH per unit dosed, but says nothing about how it will affect the pH, so I figure the less the better just in case.

The instructions say that you make a stock solution, and 1mL of this solution will increase dKH of 1 gallon by 0.36. It also says if the initial dKH is below 7, to add the maximum dose of 10ml per 20 USG (or 1/2 mL per gallon) until desired alkalinity is reached. This means that it would only raise the dKH of the entire system by 0.18 per dose. Is this considered to be the safest rate of increase of KH?

Anyone have any insights??

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

See, the pH is dependant on many other things, like CO2 levels, other water chemistry, etc. It's impossible to calculate based on volume what the end pH will be. You could do that with salinity, but not pH.


What test kits are you using? I'd suspect them to be partial culprits. It would be pretty astounding if fish would be able to survive for that long with water that far off. Try reliable test kits.

If the water really is that bad, I'd say do a smaller water change, like 20% or so. Do those a few times then bump up the quantity.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I'm using API kits that I use often enough that I feel they are reliable. Nitrate has been confirmed with my Salifert kit.

You're not going to believe these fish are even alive. Look at a few of these pics. I think one of the Sergeant Majors has a gill disease, it looks like his guts are hanging out at the bottom of his gills. I couldn't get a pic.

No skimmer, pH 7.4, KH 4, Nitrates off the scale (160), sump has no pad between baffles, and water is just flowing over the high barrier because the bottom slot is clogged, microbubbles everywhere, Cyano and uneaten food all over, overflow slots clogged to the point where the water is at the top of the tank, water is so dirty you can see how yellow it is, sump overflowed at one point and the base is warped beneath the sump, I could go on and on. The pics speak for themselves.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

OMG. I just went there and dosed with some buffer. I took a flashlight and looked in the sump. There is no pad between the low/high barrier for water flow to the pump side, and the reason the water is flowing over the top of the second barrier is that there is 2 INCHES of debris built up in between the panes, completely blocking flow. I was in yesterday and the water level on the pump side was about 4 inches from the pump intake. Today it's 2. He told me that whenever it starts blowing bubbles, he just adds more water. WTH!!

 

[DaveK]

At this point I wouldn't worry too much about pH. Get the system back on track with large partial water changes, and a general cleaning of everything. With the water changes, you should see some improvement in pH, and a general reduction of cyano.

 

[Boomer]

As chipmunk pointed out you can not take 5 gal of pH 7 and 5 gal of pH 9 and get 8 pH. pH does not work like that at all. It could still be 7 or just above 7. It takes a massive amounts of data and equations to calculate pH in a system like this and it is not worth the effort.

You also do not raise the pH with buffers, unless the pH and Alk are low and then use Soda Ash, Baked Baking soda or Arm & Hammer Washing Soda only. Or since it is just a rock tank now with fish then SeaChem Labs Marine Buffer.

Yes that tank does need to be cleaned, big-time and needs WC more than anything. Most of his issue is high CO2. As Dave pointed out do no worry about raising the pH now, do it through WC.

I have done many, many tanks that look like this in 40 years.

1. Pull out the rock and take to bath tub and spray heavily with 100 % bleach. Then rinse with shower head with very hot water. Then heavily spray it with Amquel and rinse it again in hot water.

2, Put fish in a 5 gal buckets and scrap down all the walls with a razor and let it settle to the bottom ( no pumps or any circulations of any kind).

4. Siphon off the bottom with a gravel tumbler and take the very top layer of gravel with it. Bleach the gravel as you did the rock.

5. Do a 50 % WC

6. Clean all filtering devices/ tubes/boxex/ canisters/skimmers,etc. with bleach when doing # 6

7. Get a canister filter and load it with GAC an let run for 4 hrs.

8. Hook back up all from #6

9. Reacclimate fish and put back in. Make sure the temp and Salinity are the same.



Or go the full 9-yards I and others have posted before over a 3 month period. Just recently posted by a guy on another forum. Pretty bad when you have to copy-paste your own work But I'm really old too

This is Boomer's Battle Plan against Cyano:

"Some added thoughts from over the years from many

The only known fish to eat Cyano is Amblygobius stethophthalmus and it needs to be the real one not its close relative that is often Mis-ID with it.

A 2- 3 month scheme

1. Water changes. 25% weekly.

2. Bare bottom refugium only for cheato nutrient export and not for critters.

3. Siphon, sump, refugium, etc. every week during water change and clean all filter you have.

4. Blow off all the Cyano and settled stuff you can so it can be siphoned off.

5. Clean out skimmer and cup every week.

6. Carbon, 1 cup per 50 gallons / 2 wks. Try to use ROX

7. GFO -HC , change every month.

8. Purigen, every month

9. Soak frozen food in RO/DI and discard water before use. This is especially true for brine shrimp. Matter of fact I use to pour off the water, and then fill it back up, to repeat it until there was only whole brine shrimp in the container.

10. Read what is in the food and look for things low in phosphates.

11. Keep the pH in the very low 8's or very high 7's, as Cyano will out compete other algae's in higher pH water.

12. The # 1 limiting nutrient for Cyano is N, not P based on studies in various microbiology texts.

13. During these water changes and blowing stuff off and siphoning it up run a Diatom filter with a second cake of PAC (Powdered activated carbon).

14. Increase water flow where Cyano are growing, as they do not like high currents.

15. Shutting of all lights, almost total darkness for 48 hr. every few days.

Last resort is Chemi-Clean by Boyd."

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Wow. I'll keep that in mind. It's in a restaurant though and while he does want it to look better, I doubt he'd be up for that kind of overhaul, although it definitely needs it!!!

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

What happens when you don't clean a tank for 3 years

WARNING: What you are about to see is real. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. You may feel the need to hurl after looking at these pictures. :spin2:

This tank has been up and running for about 3 years and never has had even a minor cleaning done. This is why I got decided to go into business maintaining aquariums after much debate; the fish deserve it.

The following pictures are broken into a couple of posts; before, during and after cleaning:

DT

Sump Inlet tower side

Pump side barrier (it turns out there was a sponge in there)

Here is the sponge

I discovered Bio-balls (customer said there weren't any in there!!)

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

What happens when you don't clean a tank for 3 years; continued

2 of the 5 buckets like this I siphoned out of the sump

Oooh - so pretty!!

Hey, there are those bio-balls! I only left them in there because he doesn't have enough LR. Otherwise they would have gone bye-bye

Still have to fix the sump base. An overflow somewhere along the line cause the base of the stand to bow, sump isn't level or supported on this end. Salt creep was by the handful

Cleaned the overflow slots - tank was full and pump was sucking air

After all that, only had 1/4 of the water I mixed up (10 out of 40 gallons) to clean the DT. I got about 12-16 inches across one side siphoned off with a 3/4 ID hose, just sucked the top layer off and tossed it. 10 gallons went in about 3 minutes since the top of the tank is 7 feet up.

Before:

After:

After I get the LR cleaned up and the top layer all siphoned off, I'm gonna shove all the old gravel to one side and put in a new layer of Argonite sand and eventually remove all the old stuff. But that's a ways off. Right now I'm working on cleaning the system without killing any more fish.

 

[DaveK]

Things are starting to look better! Keep up the good work.

I would recommend you mount the power strip some place where SW will not get into it if the sump overflows. Note the salt creep already there.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Wow, looking better already!

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I would recommend you mount the power strip some place where SW will not get into it if the sump overflows. Note the salt creep already there.

Yeah, it was outside of the tank, I put it there but will take it out ASAP. Good point. The salt creep is actually the remnants of what I removed. It did overflow at some point. Here's what it looked like before

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Boomer, I have a question about this one:

13. During these water changes and blowing stuff off and siphoning it up run a Diatom filter with a second cake of PAC (Powdered activated carbon).

I have a Magnum running on it right now and I have a diatom cartridge I can use. I have used this before on my FW w/diatomacious earth, I'm assuming you are talking about charging the cartridge the same way so it cakes on to the filter? I don't think I've seem PAC anywhere around here but then again I haven't looked for it.

I just scrubbed all the LR and decor and siphoned the rest of the gravel top, it looks better but the water is pretty stirred up. The diatom would clear it up super fast so I want to do this ASAP, reply soon if you can
Thanks

 

[DaveK]

... I don't think I've seem PAC anywhere around here but then again I haven't looked for it.
...

This is a somewhat unusual produce and your run of the mill LFS is unlikely to carry it. Here is a link to the Vortex page, where they sell for use in Diatom filters. (offsite) SUPER-CHAR

That being said, you can run normal carbon in your usual filtration system, and change it often.

Diatom filters are great for really cleaning out the tank, but they are not strictly necessary, and may people don't have one.

I only use mine once and awhile, but there is nothing better for really mucking out a tank.

 

[Boomer]

David speaks wisely of uisng a Vortex. I used them for almost 35 years .

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Here's a before and after set from the last cleaning I did on Wednesday. Next one set for tomorrow:

From right to left:

After, all LR & other rock on far right

Full tank shot

The tub I scrubbed the rock in to get all the cyano and debris off was so completely gross and smelly, that I can't get the smell out of it.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Wow man, definitely following along. Great work! What is the plan for hte tank?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

#1 - Lots and lots of water changes.

Tomorrow I'm going to scrub off all the rest of the cyano on the inside surfaces and do a 40g PWC.

I just got a line on 100 lbs of dry fiji rock for $1/lb and I'm going to cook that for a month and start adding it to get his LR up to where it should be. In the meantime, I'm going to continue to vac the gravel as much as possible and move it all to one side and fill the other side with new substrate, and eventually get rid of the old substrate completely.

He's still got to get his protein skimmer, I don't know if he's ordered it yet.

As soon as I get enough LR established and the substrate replaced, I'll start taking out the bio-balls and eventually replace the tower with a filter sock system.

After all that and after the Nitrates are down, he wants to get more fish. I told him that's several months off, but I'll make it happen. I'm going to start a journal thread on another site (maybe I'll duplicate it here) for this tank.