High Ph Low Ca Low Dkh

[Toyfreek]

my tank has been established for a couple of years now and everyone is happy it seems......My male bangaii is about two days from giving "birth" everything is fully extended/growing etc. heres my delema:
My Ph is 8.6 at highest 8.3 lowest
My Dkh is around 8-9 sometimes dipping to as low as 6 (test about once a month)
My Ca never gets above 400 usually around 350
I drip kalk add calcium chloride add aragamilk it never rises.
I also add Seachem Reef Carbonate about 2ml per day for like a week and it dosent change the value so i get discuraged and stop till i panic again.
during this time my ph always tests really high like 8.6-8.7
The probe is callibrated often and reads normal values on my other tanks
No matter what i add these values fluctuate very little should i just leave well enough alone since everything appears happy or am i heading to disaster?

:eek1: :eek1: :eek1:
TIA,
Matt

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Matt:

I think you have two almost equally appealing choices. I'd do the second:

1. Do nothing.

2. Stop the Reef Carbonate, and substitute grocery store baking soda. It will help the pH decline over time as it supplies more CO2 to the tank than does reef carbonate.

Also, make sure that you are not getting any cloudiness from the aragamilk into the tank. Solid CaCO3 getting into the tank water will help precipitate some calcium and carbonate (and magnesium) onto it.

If you want to drop the pH more, drop the aragamilk and use more CaCl2 and baking soda.

Ultimately, it is the limewater that is driving up the pH the most, but the baking soda will help. As a final act before ditching the limewater, you could try adding a bit of carbonated water to the sump once in a while (make sure the ingredients don't list phosphate or phosphoric acid). The CO2 will counteract the need for CO2 from the limewater. Very carefully monitor the pH in the sump when you do this, and do it very slowly at first until you get a handle on how much it takes to make a pH difference. This is a poor mans way to add CO2 to the tank.

Breathing on it is even cheaper. If I breath into my skimmer inlet, I can see the sump pH drop by several tenths of a pH unit.

[Toyfreek]

Thanks for the Ideas!
As far as baking soda I was trying to avoid yet another batch of stuff that i have to prepare and dose but if i hafta i will....should i bake 50% of the baking soda first and mix them together to make the stuff then disolve it in RO water before dosing? that is what ive been told in the past. or can i buy washing soda and use that instead? Boomer from rec.Aquaria.marine.reefs said this could be done and i trust what he says, but it never hurts to get a second opinion right?
As for breathing into my skimmer well.... My gal pal already thinks im a nutcase when she wakes up at 4AM and im sitting with a flashlight staring into My tanks. if i start "sucking" my Aquarium i think I'll be commited to the looney hatch;)
about the Aragamilk ive used it for about a year it is milky white but clears up after about an hour it claimes to be safe heres some pics. Am i being Naieve?http://toyfreek.50megs.com/images/aragamilk.jpg
Thanks again,
Matt

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

should i bake 50% of the baking soda first and mix them together to make the stuff then disolve it in RO water before dosing?

No, use it as is. You want all of the CO2 that it can provide. If the tank pH were normal to low, the baking is a fine thing, but not for you.

On the aragamilk, is the tank milky, or the aragamilk container that you add milky and then later (when you add it) it is clear? I'm strongly against adding solids to the tank and making the tank cloudy with solid CaCO3.

[Steve Richardson]

I would take the 'do nothing' approach. a pH of 8.6 isnt a problem... wait a day and see what happens.