Hello everyone, I am building my second fish tank (160-gallon mbuna tank}. Filtration is underway, selecting substrate, decor, and background right now. I have watched a few YouTube vids on raising ph with crushed coral but have a few unanswered questions. I do plan to keep my tank at 8 ph. My question is does crushed coral buffer ph to 8? For example, if my tap water is 7 and I add 10 lb of crushed coral it goes up, how fast and to what? vs. If my tap ph is 8 and I add 10 lb of crushed coral does my ph even go up or does it stay around 8? How high can crushed coral raise ph? like to 8.4 or 9? Please help... I can add tons of crushed coral to my sump.
Raising ph with crushed coral???
- Thread starter aaronc7
- Start date
The main thing that adding crushed coral does is increase your KH, or buffering capacity, i.e., it helps to prevent your pH from dropping, which tends to happen naturally due to organic wastes etc. So the effect on pH is somewhat secondary. What this tends to mean is that adding crushed coral to a low pH tank (e.g., ~pH 6), usually raises the pH by increasing the buffering capacity.
But adding it to tank that already has high relatively pH (~8+) doesn’t really drive it up further (but it will provide stability and prevent future drops in pH).
So I don’t know of a fixed formula of add x amount of coral to raise pH y amount, but if you’re running a mbuna tank I think you could probably add a lot to your sump with no real downsides.
But adding it to tank that already has high relatively pH (~8+) doesn’t really drive it up further (but it will provide stability and prevent future drops in pH).
So I don’t know of a fixed formula of add x amount of coral to raise pH y amount, but if you’re running a mbuna tank I think you could probably add a lot to your sump with no real downsides.
I agree with the above,
if the alkalinity ( buffering capacity) of your tap water is moderate to high, you will barely notice a crushed coral effect.
If you tap water has low alkalinity, your tanks pH and alkalinity will not drop as fast between water changes, even if a tank is crowded.
You "can" have an initial pH of 8, but still have low alkalinity, so pH could crash quickly between water changes, and the crushed color can help prevent that.
When I lived in Milwaukee my tap water pH averaged the high 7s, with an alkalinity of about 100ppm, and when I used aragonite sand there was a little to no noticeable bump in pH.
For African rift lake species crushed coral will be beneficial if your alkalinity is low.
If you have a high alkalinity already, and reasonable pH in the 7s and above you won't see bump, but for these cichlids a stabile pH is more important than a lot of tinkering, with other methods to achieve some magic ideal.
I have kept and had many rift lake in mid to high pH of 7s.
if the alkalinity ( buffering capacity) of your tap water is moderate to high, you will barely notice a crushed coral effect.
If you tap water has low alkalinity, your tanks pH and alkalinity will not drop as fast between water changes, even if a tank is crowded.
You "can" have an initial pH of 8, but still have low alkalinity, so pH could crash quickly between water changes, and the crushed color can help prevent that.
When I lived in Milwaukee my tap water pH averaged the high 7s, with an alkalinity of about 100ppm, and when I used aragonite sand there was a little to no noticeable bump in pH.
For African rift lake species crushed coral will be beneficial if your alkalinity is low.
If you have a high alkalinity already, and reasonable pH in the 7s and above you won't see bump, but for these cichlids a stabile pH is more important than a lot of tinkering, with other methods to achieve some magic ideal.
I have kept and had many rift lake in mid to high pH of 7s.
Sounds good, I understand the effects of the value of kh. I will have my sump up and running soon, I am going to cycle it before I get the tank hooked up. It looks like I will just need to see were the water in the sump ends up as I add maybe increasing amounts of crushed coral. It would be great if it just raises it from 7 to like 7.8-8 and gives it a strong kh as well.
A friend of mine suggested to me about using baking soda in raising the pH in my aquarium effective. A bit time-consuming perhaps, because I have to do it gradually and constantly. Overall, however, doing this is not that difficult. It is easy to do, economical, and cheap, does not need expertise, not that meticulous.
I understand the basics of the science but lack experience in this. I have a question/concern that I think will help the Original Poster here.
If the tap water has a PH of 7, And the buffered tank water has a PH of 8... Will this cause PH fluctuation at every water change? What % water change will this become dangerous?
Years ago I had very low PH/KH where I lived. I researched buffering and the above concern is why I decided to accept the low PH instead of buffering.
If the tap water has a PH of 7, And the buffered tank water has a PH of 8... Will this cause PH fluctuation at every water change? What % water change will this become dangerous?
Years ago I had very low PH/KH where I lived. I researched buffering and the above concern is why I decided to accept the low PH instead of buffering.
It all depends on the KH of the tank water. Over time, and if the true PH of the tap water is 7 and the tank water has been set to PH of 8 through methods like baking soda/crushed coral, the tank water PH will go down. I don't have set formula for determining how many water changes that is. But I do know that it will eventually happen since my tap water source changes throughout the year. I can have a PH of 7.8 with a KH of 8 degrees in my tank during the summer, but by late winter, the tank water could have a PH of 7.4 a KH of 6 degrees. Each time this would match the KH and PH of my tap water throughout the year, and I'm not doing anymore than a 75% water change spread out through a period of 7days.
