Something as simple as a Astrenia starfish out break "hundreds if not thousands in a 300DD in two weeks" led to a rapid consumption of my Coraline algae then a drastic rise in ALK due to no more rapid growth of corralling uptake of ALK and MAG. Coralline algae seems to eats up MAG. I saw "or should say didn't see!!!" soon after a rise in N03 as well, as they devoured coraline. Basically a 8.0 -8.3 - to 11.5 rush over 30 days or three tests rounds till i noticed the big issue playing out. I saw colors going off on the acros and some other minor issues and knew something was up but was so busy with start fish I didn't dig deep enough to find the ALK climbing. MY BAD. Mind you I'm siphoning starfish and looking for a solution on that and not considering the other effects they are having on my eco system till it was too late. My KALK ATO along with my Ca reactor had ran things up high fast with out me noticing on my bi weekly ALk test schedule I had fallen into over the last year of very stable ALK over all and a few pesky start fish here and there I was not too worried about at that point. Those star fish took a bite out of me. Harley the harlequin shrimp has done a good job polishing them off the last two months so I got my revenge to some degree. Coraline is coming back fast and ALK demand is changing every week right now. And now ALK levels have regained my well deserved attention in this hobby as it once was when I began. I got lazy. I got bit. I didn't loose anything but some growth maybe a frag or two. But I learned a good lesson, "Every thing effects everything else to some degree". And a ALK baby sitter would save me alot of trouble next time I undoubtedly learn a new lesson about this challenging hobby.
I never thought about that. The longer you maintain such stable levels, you begin to just expect the numbers to always be consistent. You slowly fall out of the habit of closely monitoring parameters. Alkalinity is such a crucial aspect of a reef tank, yet it can be so easily forgotten about.
It makes sense that automating everything from testing to dosing could be game-changing. It takes human error out of the equation. I know with certainty that there are times I forget to test my Alk, or would have forgotten to dose entirely. Now I have a dosing pump which I'm working on tuning in, so I'm testing daily. Here's what I find interesting; Maybe I'm just seeing things, but the more I tighten the Alk swings, the more polyp extension I see from the corals.