Are Alk spikes a real issue?

[bubbaque]

How sure are we that alk spikes cause issues?

I ask because when I get corals from people, I am sure our tanks alk doesn't match. I never drip acclimate and just put them in the tank (after dipping). I would consider that an instant spike in alk. I have met up with a buddy the past couple weeks as I bought some coral. He keeps his alk at 7 and I keep mine close to 10. That's a instant spike of 3 DKH as soon as it hits my tank water. I also gave him corals and he had no issues going down in alk. I buy corals from a lot of people and never had an issue with just dropping it in the tank.

It got me wondering if alk is the real issue. Could the real issue be something happened in your tank that caused your corals to stop growing, which then raised alk and you always assumed it was the alk spike?

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

What sort of corals are you keeping?

 

[bubbaque]

What sort of corals are you keeping?

Acropora.

There is a link to my coral in my signature.

 

[29bonsaireef]

You know I always wondered about this myself. I too never acclimate corals

 

[acro-ed]

I am 100% sure that alk spikes cause issues. Many SPS can tolerate infrequent alk spikes just fine, such as your point about no acclimation and they are jumping alk and are perfectly fine. I agree that most are perfectly fine doing this. Major alk swings definitely slows down growth because you are interrupting stability. Some corals take it harder than others. Will a couple alk events in a month kill acros? Probably not. Will that slow growth and/or yield less vibrant color? Probably.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Acropora.

There is a link to my coral in my signature.

Hmm, I've never had an issue with my Acropora dealing with an alk spike or quick change, but I have had an entire colony of Birdsnest die off from being near where I poured in my two part one time, so I wouldn't say it absolutely isn't an issue, but that maybe some corals are better equipped to handle it over others.

 

[mclark452]

I am 100% sure that alk spikes cause issues. Many SPS can tolerate infrequent alk spikes just fine, such as your point about no acclimation and they are jumping alk and are perfectly fine. I agree that most are perfectly fine doing this. Major alk swings definitely slows down growth because you are interrupting stability. Some corals take it harder than others. Will a couple alk events in a month kill acros? Probably not. Will that slow growth and/or yield less vibrant color? Probably.

I agree with acro-ed. I think alk becomes a real issue when there are major sustained swings going on over a period of time or if the level slowly drops too low and stays low or slowly rises too high and stays high.

 

[bubbaque]

I am 100% sure that alk spikes cause issues. Many SPS can tolerate infrequent alk spikes just fine, such as your point about no acclimation and they are jumping alk and are perfectly fine. I agree that most are perfectly fine doing this. Major alk swings definitely slows down growth because you are interrupting stability. Some corals take it harder than others. Will a couple alk events in a month kill acros? Probably not. Will that slow growth and/or yield less vibrant color? Probably.

Thats more of an issue with frequent swings in parameters than alk in my opinion. I think the same would happen if you would swing nitrate, phosphate, ph, salinity, temp, etc.

Do you think it’s the alk or just lack of stability?

 

[29bonsaireef]

You know what is is even stranger about this. I just recently had to move all my corals to a new system. A day later I changed out 80gallons of water from the ocean so NSW to bring the alk from what was near 11 down to NSW. It's been well over a week or two now and corals are fine. Another interesting thing is that was honestly the first time I've used my alk kit in probably 3 years and I would do 50% WC weekly on my nano. Always wondered if the alk was really staying rock stable with every single new batch of water, could have been I suppose.. Very interesting and good question for the serious chemist guys.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

It's also worth remembering that many people choose their formula of two-part, like pure sodium carbonate, for the pH boost. This helps if your pH is chronically low, but it's definitely a problem in an event of an overdose. If your doser sticks on on and raises your alkalinity from 7 to 10 dKh, your pH goes up by roughly 0.64 units. If your average pH is around 8.1, that could mean your pH would go almost as high as 8.75. So now in addition to having much more carbonate alkalinity, your corals also have to deal with a huge pH spike.

 

[bubbaque]

It's also worth remembering that many people choose their formula of two-part, like pure sodium carbonate, for the pH boost. This helps if your pH is chronically low, but it's definitely a problem in an event of an overdose. If your doser sticks on on and raises your alkalinity from 7 to 10 dKh, your pH goes up by roughly 0.64 units. If your average pH is around 8.1, that could mean your pH would go almost as high as 8.75. So now in addition to having much more carbonate alkalinity, your corals also have to deal with a huge pH spike.

I remember when BRS left their two part running overnight and it turned the tank cloudy. The biggest concern they said is ph.

 

[jda]

It depends. Helpful, right? I recently had my alk get down to 4.1-4.3 (Salifert) after my Co2 bottle emptied and I missed it for a few days. I cranked it right back up to 7.0 with baking soda in about 5 minutes. Nothing changed at all. However, this is the first time that it swung in a few years. I firmly believe that having high alk is only really an issue if you are looking for absolute maximum growth and/or are dosing organic carbon to keep building blocks low.

My unsubstantiated opinion is that otherwise healthy corals can handle any alk swing, but they can also be a nail in the coffin for acropora that are just hanging on (even if they look OK). I have never found alk to matter at all to MBP&S.

 

[Sierra_Bravo]

Just gained some first hand experience on this, unfortunately. Four days ago I was adding supplemental calcium after my weekly testing and grabbed the wrong solution - I poured around 200ml of Randy's two-part Alk instead. I went from 8.5 to 11 dKH in moments, and my pH went from 7.9 to 8.4. I lost one tenuis after 24 hrs, had partial damage on another, but so far I'm not seeing any other damage. Interestingly these two were among my slowest to become established.

 

[Mystikal]

Just gained some first hand experience on this, unfortunately. Four days ago I was adding supplemental calcium after my weekly testing and grabbed the wrong solution - I poured around 200ml of Randy's two-part Alk instead. I went from 8.5 to 11 dKH in moments, and my pH went from 7.9 to 8.4. I lost one tenuis after 24 hrs, had partial damage on another, but so far I'm not seeing any other damage. Interestingly these two were among my slowest to become established.

That seems more of a reasonable explanation of ALK spikes being an issues. In theory if your buying/trading a frag with someone, even if you do not drip acclimate, the organic chemistry of the water shouldn't be much different. Maybe just the ALK may be the only piece that may be substantially different.
Where as if you had an Alk spike in your reef, many others can be effective by the Alk spike...Raised PH, higher CA, Lower MG etc etc etc. This instability may hinder and effect some SPS.

 

[WWIII]

I am unsure as well? I know stability is key to keeping acropora, but not sure if alkalinity spikes, or drops, (within reason) alone will kill acros? I think it's an interesting point that if you're losing corals the alkalinity will almost surely be rising as those dead corals, and upset corals, should certainly be uptaking less alkalinity.

I wonder if @Bulk Reef Supply has any experience with this in any of their studies/projects. It would make for an interesting video in tanks growing sps well, but I don't think most of us are willing to test it out. Sure we have plenty of first hand accounts of changes in alkalinity and corals suffering, but was that all that was going on?

I'll keep mine steady for now, but good topic! It's been drilled in all of our heads that sudden changes in alk will harm corals, but interesting how system to system transfers, with different dkh, don't seem to bother corals (acropora) in an otherwise stable tank environment.

All of these alk monitors coming to market may help us to understand this topic more in the years to come!

 

[therman]

I'd say they can be a serious issue, but certain corals/species/morphs are definitely more sensitive to fluctuations. I have a ton of different Acropora and Montipora, and have had some major alk swings while away from home for a week or two. Some things don't even flinch, others are completely annihilated, and others go dormant for months to years after. Certain species seem to really thrive at higher alk, others thrive at lower. Certain Montipora bleach every time there is a swing of more than a degree or so.

One reason YMMV is that some hobbyists with a single tank and say 20 or fewer SPS may have all the morphs that are really resilient to swings. Due to the small sample size they might say it doesn't matter. Their friend down the street might have all the sensitive ones and have a catastrophic loss with the same alk swing.

Frags are a different story. There seems to be a certain time period after fragging when they are super resilient and can tolerate all kinds of abuse. I've had discussions with Adam @Battlecorals about this a number of times, and there might be some threads in his forum about it. However if you let them establish for months, fully encrust and then try to ship them, they often go *poof*. A little encrustation around a frag is a good thing...a ton is a recipe for a bag of cloudy water or next morning RTN.

This is just what I've deduced from my experiences. However after almost 20 years keeping SPS, alkalinity is the only parameter I pay close attention to in my system.

 

[mckinney0171]

my alkalinity spikes every day from 6 and then back to 8 when i add my red sea part B. I have no issues. So for me I have not noticed that it matters much. My tank is full of battlecorals frags.

 

[rock_lobster]

I know its is strange but I have 3 different tanks and the alkalinity varies from 8 to 13dkh. I move coral around them as if they have the exact same parameters and I havent even seen the slightest polyp retraction and especially no deaths. I think there is something else going on with an alk spike (rapid unstable change in water chemistry) and it is different than tanks with different alkalinities that are stable. Could be that is simply the pH swing that causes the issue during an alk spike and not the absolute alkalinity value.

 

[rock_lobster]

I'd say they can be a serious issue, but certain corals/species/morphs are definitely more sensitive to fluctuations. I have a ton of different Acropora and Montipora, and have had some major alk swings while away from home for a week or two. Some things don't even flinch, others are completely annihilated, and others go dormant for months to years after. Certain species seem to really thrive at higher alk, others thrive at lower. Certain Montipora bleach every time there is a swing of more than a degree or so.

One reason YMMV is that some hobbyists with a single tank and say 20 or fewer SPS may have all the morphs that are really resilient to swings. Due to the small sample size they might say it doesn't matter. Their friend down the street might have all the sensitive ones and have a catastrophic loss with the same alk swing.

Frags are a different story. There seems to be a certain time period after fragging when they are super resilient and can tolerate all kinds of abuse. I've had discussions with Adam @Battlecorals about this a number of times, and there might be some threads in his forum about it. However if you let them establish for months, fully encrust and then try to ship them, they often go *poof*. A little encrustation around a frag is a good thing...a ton is a recipe for a bag of cloudy water or next morning RTN.

This is just what I've deduced from my experiences. However after almost 20 years keeping SPS, alkalinity is the only parameter I pay close attention to in my system.

Yup thats why I always buy small frags. The survival rate is much higher for me. Colonies cost a ton and they are either DOA or dead within a week in most cases.

 

[TMB]

I have recently been wondering this exact same thing. Over the last 5 or so years of focusing solely on SPS and acros I always believed that Alk swings were the main cause of any problems that popped up. So... last year I ordered an Alkatronic to see if I could fix any potential issues with Alk swings.

Fast forward to today (7 months of Alk monitoring), I can firmly say that Alk swings were never the sole cause of issues for me, even though I thought they were. Alk is rock solid in my system, only like .2 or .3 over the course of a week. And I have not changed anything with my dosing regimen, which is 2 part on auto dosers.

Since adding the Alk monitor, I learning that I need to look elsewhere for what would cause issues with my SPS.
I've since added auto water changes to my system. The reason I did this was to simply up the frequency that water was being changed, and take myself out of the equation. Not that I was bad with husbandry, just not as perfect as I wanted to be. I also could not find any test that would lead me to a potential cause of issues.

I know this doesn't really answer the question, but it does (for me at least) confirm that Alk is often blamed when something else is at play. What will be interesting is if I can draw a correlation between any future SPS issues, and an Alk swing (if there is one or not).

And BTW, my corals have been growing and happy since the AWC addition. (No recent issues, fingers crossed).

TMB