Wondering the pH of your water before mixing.

I use store bought ro/di and found is 6.8 or lower. If I add the salt immediately, pH would only be around 8.1 so would be behind from the start.

Found aerating for a day brings the pH to 7.0, so when I add the salt, the mix then tests 8.3.

Any chance you just switched to a new bucket or bag of salt? I've seen that before on here where people use the same salt but one bag is no where near the other for buffering or Ca levels. I got into the habit of always testing the pH of my water I was going to add during a water change and I had a surprise or two.

Doug

in my case , no , it's still the same container of salt .

OK , now I feel stupid . :redface:
I went to two stores yesterday and explained to them what happened to me and told them what I was going to build ( kalk drip ) and they looked at me like I was ???
one guy told me to leave my tank alone , it should stabilize on it's own (PH) . ( bull ) I say .

so I'm stuck .
all I have is the container made for the drip , and thats as far as I can get
where do I purchase the chemical , in winnipeg ?

You can get Kalk at stores like Fish Gallery, and Salt Water Connection. You can make a dripper out of a 1 liter water bottle, some tubing and a valve.

Try Baking Soda to increase your alkalinity and Kalk to bring up the pH.

Only other thing I can think of is any chance you have alot of CO2 in your water? that would drop the pH but aeration should remove the excess CO2

Doug

Baking soda will increase alk, but at the same time decreases pH. Use both baking soda and kalk at the same time, but from different containers. Putting them in the same container causes precipitation.

My recipe is:

- 1 teaspoon baking soda mixed well in two cups of tankwater
- 2 1/2 cups kalk

Increase in alk with that recipe in my 67g is 1.5 dKH, with a minimum change in pH.

Yesterday, I adjusted alk in our three tanks, pouring in small amounts of both baking soda mixture and kalk in at the same time. Have a pH monitor which measured increase/decrease of pH. pH remained relatively stable. Don't know if others use this method, but have used it several times in the past with no ill effects on fish, corals, inverts.

BTW, kalk recipe is 3/4 teapsoon kalk powder in 4 litres RO/DI water mixed well in a clean milk jug. Let this mixture sit 12-24 hours before using. Discard any water where kalk powder has precipitated at the bottom of the jug.