After a tank crash im restarting. Unsure where to hold my alk at for a mixed reef.

[Zeal]

As the title states. I used to have a mixed reef. Prior to my tank crash which was my own fault. (I burned my corals with my light)

Now im starting up again and on the fence on where I should keep my alk. I would like to use Tropic Marin Pro alt but that mixes around 7-7.5ishhh

I kind of want to hold my alk around 8.5-9 since I generally have Nitrates around 15 and Phos around 0.03-0.05

Since all I have in there right now is Zoas this is the perfect time to dial in a number and hold it.

Im currently using b-ionic and have no intention of using anything else.

 

[Reef.]

I used to run 9 prior to the crash, used red sea blue bucket.

remember chances are you will end up dosing, so you can really go for any salt, ideally you want one near to the lvl you are going to run your tank but all salts can be altered just a matter of how much you want to do with the salt

You sound exactly where I was a couple of months ago, I was using Red Sea blue bucket but was considering switching to Tropic Marin pro, I got a lot of conflicting advice, saying Pro was too low in alk and I didn’t need the lvls of mag and calcium that were in the Pro, I took all the advice but still ended up switching to the Pro, just seems right for me.

So Glad HB AL posted here, seems by the look of his tank, 7dkh is a good aim to have!

 

[Reef.]

Why not leave the salt at or around 7-7.5 where it mixes and dose what your system uses ?

exactly my plan.

 

[Rmckoy]

exactly my plan.

I’ve never understood dosing to get to the higher end

 

[Born2beblack]

Ive been reading some threads on here before posting and everyone says something different.

Higher alk means faster growth

Some say all about stability

Some same stability + high alk

Some same just match natural sea water....

So much conflicting information..

Stability my friend always stabilty
Cause if you cant maintain that high alk
You will have a bad issue later on.

Where is, if you stay at a stable area you can work with and maintain.
Corals with thrive amazingly

I have good stable peremeters
Is my alk higher then orher yes but do i try and get it there no
I just keep a stable 7.5 to 8 and i chill there
People with worst peremeters have great growth cause they keep those peremeters stable for years

 

[Born2beblack]

Most everyone is gonna have there own opinion especially people who have expiramented with alk a bit, running systems at high and low and experienced the different results. All you can do is try it at 9 and see what kind of results you see in your tank.

What i was thinking to
After you learn how to maintain alk
You can experiment and seewhat happend at higher or lower levels