3.8 DKH Alkalinity from ORA

[Lazys Coral House]

I received a shipment today of 5 acropora from Oceans Reefs and Aquarium. I tested the shipping water the sticks came in and the alkalinity was 3.8 DKH. How is that even possible? The acros looked just fine. I had another box that came from live aquaria and the alkalinity was 9.2 DKH. I tested my water 9.5 DKH. Tested the ORA water again, same reading 3.8 DKH. I just don’t understand how that’s possible?

 

[Hitman]

What was the salinity?

 

[Lazys Coral House]

It was 1.025

 

[Garin fisher]

Woah... following [emoji15][emoji848]

 

[slojmn]

Those corals must have grown exponentially overnight and sucked all that alk up , lol.....but for reals, interested to follow this thread. Something seems amiss for sure!!

 

[Lazys Coral House]

the corals look great and are doing well. I did get a response from ORA.

Hi Brian, great to hear from you again! Its pretty surprising isn't it? We do tend to run parameters that are against conventional wisdom and husbandry ranges. But I think that's one of the reasons why our acros are just so tough...generations of frags have adapted to some our more robust conditions.

How did your corals arrive? How do they look in your tank?

 

[Gareth elliott]

Honestly most ora corals will handle about any conditions given the proper acclimation to the extremes drop in a tank at 4dkh from 9 will probably shock it but dont dose and it slides that low usually will keep on kicking.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

I don’t understand how they can survive going from 4dkh to 8dkh or more.

 

[Lazys Coral House]

i don’t understand either but they are just fine. If my alk gets to 7dkh I start having issues. How are they running 3.8dkh and not having any problems. I saved water in a specimen cup so I could check calcium and mag. Curious what that is at

 

[Dkeller_nc]

There is probably a chemistry reason for their alk being low. I'm speculating on this, but I believe that ORA is on the East coast of Florida for a reason - they use ocean water in their facilities to keep costs low. Ocean water is a good bit lower in alkalinity than our tanks - IIRC, it's about 6 dKH, and varies quite a bit from location to location. If their input water is around 6 dKH, then one would expect their coral tanks would be somewhat less than that due to consumption by coral and coralline algae.

 

[taricha]

Would a lower Alk enforce a kind of stasis on the corals - like a hibernation that might lead to better shipping outcomes? Wild speculation.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I expect their answer is just misdirection. Note they do not actually say what levels they maintain. Corals do not thrive at 3.8 dKH and the skeletons will be slowly dissolving any time the pH is below 8.2.