Maintaining Alkalinity at high level (12 dKH) - Accelerated Coral Growth?

[Robthorn]

I am no scientist nor have I written anything pretending to be. anytime my Alk hits 8.7 or higher on my inaccurate salifert kit I have death of some sort. euphylia popping heads or acros losing tissue. I don't care about accelerated growth. My tank grows decent to me already.

 

[Neptunes Aquariums]

You may want to check this out.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I am no scientist nor have I written anything pretending to be. anytime my Alk hits 8.7 or higher on my inaccurate salifert kit I have death of some sort. euphylia popping heads or acros losing tissue. I don't care about accelerated growth. My tank grows decent to me already.

Perhaps your nutrients are too low to accommodate the accelerated growth that comes with higher alkalinity. That is a clear issue with some corals.

 

[Robthorn]

I have no idea Randy. I have a lot of issues with not being able to do things in my tank many others do in theirs. Aminos and high alk and .....

I still have many times the nutrient levels of in shore reefs in Oahu. I tested. With hobbyist kits of course.

I am over trying to replicate what someone else does. I know what works for my style of system and I am sticking to it. I have found a ton of things that absolutely do not work and I still have a pretty nice reef with decent growth.
Always fun to chim in with thoughts still.

 

[Tautog]

FWIW, I just got my mixed reef tank back to normal.
Before the summer heat I was dealing with high No3's. I did 40% water changes, and waited, removed the deep sand bed, fed less, and waited again. After testing Ca, KH, Mg my KH was 12-14 dKH. I had started using Bio-Cal, but it elevated the Alkalinity. I stopped the Bio-Cal. Kept with WC's. Instant Ocean, Reef Crystals.
I have LEDs.
Coral growth had continued on some, others died.
The color on some corals faded, but others were un-changed, and still had growth.
See photo, coral growing off plug is new growth(reddish color), 6 months.
Is this growth average, or not???

 

[Quah]

@Gwafi Check out Dana Riddle's MACNA talk on this thread.

 

[bif24701]

I find it difficult to keep ALK so high. I find great growth when my ALK is 9-10. It's a good balance for me. I really think you have to consider many factors when you want to make a change. Change isn't typically good anyway and it's better to be constant with very stable water parameters

 

[fabutahoun]

That is Directly from red sea website, the recommended 1-2 ppm NO3 and 0.1 ppm PO4

 

[tcup25]

I have been dealing with burnt tips. This thread has been very informative. Following.

 

[Robthorn]

Wow. Those elevated levels would completely wipe out all my corals. I guess if you have everything elevated together it probably works for many people.
I really likemy tank right now and the great colors so I will stick close to natural sea levels. I test the ocean wherever I go and have never gotten anything close to their recommendations.

 

[rosshamsandwich]

Some of my SPS are really happy with dkh 12.5 then again my other SPS look ticked. Having high alk and high nutrients and my corals are browning...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Some of my SPS are really happy with dkh 12.5 then again my other SPS look ******. Having high alk and high nutrients and my corals are browning...

That's the expected trade off of elevating nutrients and alkalintity for faster growth: more brown color.

 

[DarkSky]

Not a bad idea for new SPS tanks. Let it grow fast for a year, then dial the alkalinity and nutrients down to color everything up.

 

[Ocelaris]

It's not a permanent problem, more like the risk is there, and it's finding a good balance of conditions. Some corals might be prone to browning out more than others, and certainly our corals adapt to our conditions which don't resemble their natural habitat. I think quick changes are more the culprit than high nutrients over all. Look at the thread with the "masters", almost all of them are running relatively high nutrients, although most run lower alkalinity. So it's not a hard and fast guarantee, as much as a higher probability.

 

[Newb73]

Didn't read the whole thread but....my PH levels hit 8.3 to 8.5 at around 8 to 9 alk.

If I ran my alk higher my PH would be dangerously high.

Probably because I have 1 led unit every 8 inches, crystal clear water via ozone and an over sized grow light in my sump that never shuts off.

I quit skimming completly, continuous water changes at 1.8gpd.

I run a nitrate reactor to.

I am certainly no master though and I mostly keep LPS so ignore me except to realize that biological physiology like a reef tank are complex systems with many many known and unknown variables which when interacting together are dam near unpredictable.

Even much of the conventional wisdom *cough* pump manufacturers recommended flow based on tank size and coral dominance and light makers claims about par and spectrum virtually guaranteeing success *cough* is at best...and educated guess. IMO, real corals prefer way less of both light and flow than what the manufacturers suggest....what works....is actually more units at very low settings (for both LEDs and wave makers)....but the marketing that this one item solves world hunger sells better than ...."you can't afford what you really need so just turn these units wide open and it will be about the same"....which from what I can tell is just a how to guide for killing corals.

You are going to have to do some trial and error on your own and measure success in years, not months.

I run IO , because I saw no benefit of using designer salts. I run 2 part, because BRS pumps are cheap and I find it easier than kalk or a Ca reactor, and I measure and dose the two part asymetrically not in a 1:1 ratio the eay everyone says (Ca 450 to 475/Alk 8.25 to 9.2ish)

My lights are at 30 to 40% (though with the number of fixtures I run that probably translates into others 60 to 70% and my Wav makers are at 50% to 70% in the morning and 20% to 30% evening 10% at night. I run shade effects (cuts lighting to 10% about 30% of the time) nearly all day.

Salt 1.025, Temp 79.

I run one reactor now. ROX. 08x2 wks then GFO or 5 wks, alternating.

Dosing nutrients?...tried it...didnt see much benifit over just adding another tang and feeding heavy.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Didn't read the whole thread but....my PH levels hit 8.3 to 8.5 at around 8 to 9 alk.

If I ran my alk higher my PH would be dangerously high.

...

I quit skimming completly, continuous water changes at 1.8gpd.

Perhaps add back the skimmer. More aeration will bring that pH down. The pH of 9 dKH seawater equilibrated with normal to high CO2 air will not be over about 8.3 or so.

 

[Newb73]

Perhaps add back the skimmer. More aeration will bring that pH down. The pH of 9 dKH seawater equilibrated with normal to high CO2 air will not be over about 8.3 or so.

To Clarify, my skimmer still runs, it just does not produce any skimmate since I now use it as my ozone reactor. (My Geo Reef reactor kept oxidizing the seals and was more of a chore to keep the pressure level correct to maintain the water level in the reaction chamber was just more work than I wanted to continue to mess with, so I pulled it and connected the smaller UV light setup ran to my air intake on my skimmer and made some room in the sump by pulling out the ozone reactor in the process).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

To Clarify, my skimmer still runs, it just does not produce any skimmate since I now use it as my ozone reactor. (My Geo Reef reactor kept oxidizing the seals and was more of a chore to keep the pressure level correct to maintain the water level in the reaction chamber was just more work than I wanted to continue to mess with, so I pulled it and connected the smaller UV light setup ran to my air intake on my skimmer and made some room in the sump by pulling out the ozone reactor in the process).

There's nothing wrong with pH 8.5, but if you don't want it that high, or want alk higher, more aeration will bring it down (assuming the pH measurement is accurate).

IMO, excessively high pH was the biggest problem in my tank (actually, the only thing I noticed) when experimenting without my skimmer for a few months. Since I dosed limewater, the pH always ran high.

 

[User1]

Necro'ing an older thread but I just watched the video by @Dana Riddle (great job btw!) and found the comment about water movement interesting. I think you said 3 inches or so in our tank. Maybe 3 to 4. Mother nature on a clam day is 6 or more you said (and probably right as I remember diving in Hawaii on clam days).

This really caught my attention today as I've been looking looking at how to many flow in my tank. I thought I had flow planned properly but alas I've clearly failed. Part of the problem is the amount of rock the other part is how it is laid out. Then I have to factor in the maturity vs. coral growth. I'm starting to see some coral growth on my frags and while not trying to speed it up (I'm not) I can clearly see flow is a potential issue. I'm just not sure how to even address it but I do have some options I guess - which may be good.

I was originally using two Gyre's XF250's on opposite sides of the tank but with a young tank it was too much even if I lowered the speed. I removed those and then added random flow nozzles on my sea swirls. That worked ok but then I felt I had bare spots. I separated those and added a pump to each - part for fail over and part to add more flow. Then I thought it was too much due to how they are placed.

Then I watched your presentation and heard you say 3 - 4 inches and if your sand isn't moving there isn't enough flow... How to get proper flow with a poorly aquascaped tank is proving to be a challenge and when rocks are epoxied together even more

Anyway thanks for the great presentation. I learned some new things and now need to see what I can do.

 

[Superlightman]

Some reviews since ? The brs test seems to show that it not only increase growth but also give better colors