Thanks so much for the help! I’m cycling my tank now and originally chose the Tropic Marin Pro salt not realizing it’s around a 7. But what you’re saying makes a lot of sense. Right now my PH is around 7.5 so I was contemplating switiching up my salt to something with a higher baseline ph. Are you using a certain salt or dosing something in order to keep your ph high? I’m going to have a mixed tank with SPS, LPS, and fish. I would love your thoughts on it as I’m a new reefer!
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Personal Experience Correlation of Alkalinity and Nutrients (N and P) From My Experience
- Author Earl Karl
- Publish date
- Article read time 4 min read
- Blondie Fragz
- 5.00 star(s)
- gatorbait01
- 5.00 star(s)
Thanks for the article. Interesting read.
- Worthy1
- 5.00 star(s)
Awesome work. Clear and easy to understand.
I do have a question about what your Calc and Mag were for the tests, were they elevated. Particularly for your sweet spot of 9.dkh?
I do have a question about what your Calc and Mag were for the tests, were they elevated. Particularly for your sweet spot of 9.dkh?
- Dakoda
- 5.00 star(s)
Fantastic information, good reminder to maintain balance with all of your tank parameters.
- bar|none
- 5.00 star(s)
Awesome. This advise may almost be gospel by now but it's so great to read the rationale from the source with backstory...and to remind what is going on with the corals.
Thx!
Thx!
- MnFish1
- 4.00 star(s)
Good luck with the MMA - question - what experience do you have with varied lighting intensities with regards especially low nutrients high alk etc. Its one component you didnt cover/mention much
E
Earl Karl
Thank you! The reason why I didn't go too in depth for lighting is because as the title stated, the topic is about the correlation of alkalinity and nutrients. However, light is also a big source of nutrients (some call it building blocks of life), which is Carbon, so I guess it is worth explaining.
Honestly, I haven't done too much experiment with lighting because I knew what spectrum is optimal for corals and what intensity is needed. Plus I am only testing on a certain species of coral, not variety of sps, lps, and softies so lighting requirement is just different in general. But not alkalinity and nutrients.
When corals photosynthesize, they are turning light energy into glucose, which is a source of carbon. Carbon is one of the building blocks of life, along with Nitrogen and Phosphorus (C:N:P ratio of 108:16:1). However, size of the coral is a factor when it comes to lighting. Corals grow exponentially, so the bigger they are, the faster they grow. A frag can only utilize so much light, it will not grow as fast as a colony that can utilize a lot more due to a bigger network of zooxanthallae to process all the light.
Spectrum of the light needs to be appropriate as well for tissue growth and coloration, but light in general has nothing to do with skeleton growth. Maybe the higher the alkalinity, the higher the PAR? I am not quite sure since I have not done an experiment but I would assume that higher PAR is needed to provide enough Carbon for tissue growth in order to keep up with skeleton growth. But again, I'm not sure, but I guess it makes sense however. Unfortunately, carbon can't really be measured so unless we have the technology and knowledge, it's a guessing game at this point.
There really is no perfect PAR number, only a sweet spot range. I found that 400-500 PAR is a good range. For frags, I would go lower to even 300. An aquaculture facility that I work at has colonies under halides blasting them with 750-850 PAR, because the corals have enough zooxanthallae to handle that much lighting. In the end, there really is no way of finding out which intensity is best for the coral with the lack of research and technology we have. This is something we have to be tuned with our tanks and see which intensity works best for our corals. I do, however, recommend PAR meters because they do give a great starting point for people to adjust if needed.
Honestly, I haven't done too much experiment with lighting because I knew what spectrum is optimal for corals and what intensity is needed. Plus I am only testing on a certain species of coral, not variety of sps, lps, and softies so lighting requirement is just different in general. But not alkalinity and nutrients.
When corals photosynthesize, they are turning light energy into glucose, which is a source of carbon. Carbon is one of the building blocks of life, along with Nitrogen and Phosphorus (C:N:P ratio of 108:16:1). However, size of the coral is a factor when it comes to lighting. Corals grow exponentially, so the bigger they are, the faster they grow. A frag can only utilize so much light, it will not grow as fast as a colony that can utilize a lot more due to a bigger network of zooxanthallae to process all the light.
Spectrum of the light needs to be appropriate as well for tissue growth and coloration, but light in general has nothing to do with skeleton growth. Maybe the higher the alkalinity, the higher the PAR? I am not quite sure since I have not done an experiment but I would assume that higher PAR is needed to provide enough Carbon for tissue growth in order to keep up with skeleton growth. But again, I'm not sure, but I guess it makes sense however. Unfortunately, carbon can't really be measured so unless we have the technology and knowledge, it's a guessing game at this point.
There really is no perfect PAR number, only a sweet spot range. I found that 400-500 PAR is a good range. For frags, I would go lower to even 300. An aquaculture facility that I work at has colonies under halides blasting them with 750-850 PAR, because the corals have enough zooxanthallae to handle that much lighting. In the end, there really is no way of finding out which intensity is best for the coral with the lack of research and technology we have. This is something we have to be tuned with our tanks and see which intensity works best for our corals. I do, however, recommend PAR meters because they do give a great starting point for people to adjust if needed.
- Reefadore
- 5.00 star(s)
I always enjoy when you can teach me a lot about something I really did not even think about. I am fairly new to the SW tank hobby (2014) and articles like this one help me to reimagine how I’m doing things in my tank setup, like maintenance, why I would utilize certain things as opposed to others. Thank you for the fantastic write up.
E
Earl Karl
Thanks man! There is always more than one way of success. Generally Alk. Stability and balanced N:P ratios (16:1, so if you have 0.06 ppm PO4, multiply that by 16 and that should be your NO3, which in this case will give you ~1 ppm NO3) will guide you to success.
For a new setup I would make sure you do all your changes when you have easier to keep corals. Too much changes and fluctuation will kill everything delicate like acros, I too have fell victim to this. When you get things right, that's when it is what I believe best to add more of your higher end pieces. Have patience and do not try to rush everything.
For a new setup I would make sure you do all your changes when you have easier to keep corals. Too much changes and fluctuation will kill everything delicate like acros, I too have fell victim to this. When you get things right, that's when it is what I believe best to add more of your higher end pieces. Have patience and do not try to rush everything.
- Joshua Kerstetter
- 4.00 star(s)
This is something I'm struggling with right now, and this article explained it better than anything I've read so far. I wish we could have a standardized way of measuring growth and coloration, but that seems far fetched for now.
- Tariq
- 5.00 star(s)
This article is the essence of the sps hobby.
Thank you for going over your experiment and explaining everything in a format that easy to read and understand.
Thank you for going over your experiment and explaining everything in a format that easy to read and understand.
Magnesium I like to keep it high, at around 1400, no lower than 1350. Helps with stability.
However, Ca and Mg levels aren't as important as long they are in good range. As long as your Alk. is stable, no need to chase numbers.