I keep reading @Randy Holmes-Farley articles and feel like I'm getting closer to understanding some reef chemistry.
As I've been dialing in my tank parameters and chasing some numbers, I'm wondering if there is a balance to strike for each tank and approach.
So I'd like to focus on my tank and where the numbers should be stabilized around.
So far, I've really focused on getting my pH stable. With my setup, I can dial-in pH and maintain it within .05. I've been targeting 8.35, but have started to get clumping sand due to abiotic precipitation.
This got me thinking that if I have a higher pH such as 8.35, I should be targeting a lower dKH to avoid some of this abiotic precipitation.
Since my tank is only 5 months old with a few frags, I was targeting higher numbers for increased growth. BRS had a nice little experiment with raised parameters that showed greatly increased growth.
So maybe the right combo is not pushing up all your parameters. Higher pH with lower Alk/Ca/Mag and lower pH tanks with higher Alk/Ca/Mag.
I was also thinking about equipment failure. If my Skimmer + CO2 Scrubber + Kalk fails, I'll be taking my tank from 8.35 to 7.9 pretty quickly.
So what combo would work best for my current situation?
pH: 8.25
Alk: 7.5
Ca: 450
Mag: 1400
This would give me slightly higher parameters than NSW and hopefully increased growth.
The one thing my tank has struggled with is getting Alk stability...which is what I've been ocusing on since achieving pH stability.
With what I theorized as mostly abiotic demand, just when I think I have it figured out it doesn't behave as expected.
As I've been dialing in my tank parameters and chasing some numbers, I'm wondering if there is a balance to strike for each tank and approach.
So I'd like to focus on my tank and where the numbers should be stabilized around.
So far, I've really focused on getting my pH stable. With my setup, I can dial-in pH and maintain it within .05. I've been targeting 8.35, but have started to get clumping sand due to abiotic precipitation.
This got me thinking that if I have a higher pH such as 8.35, I should be targeting a lower dKH to avoid some of this abiotic precipitation.
Since my tank is only 5 months old with a few frags, I was targeting higher numbers for increased growth. BRS had a nice little experiment with raised parameters that showed greatly increased growth.
So maybe the right combo is not pushing up all your parameters. Higher pH with lower Alk/Ca/Mag and lower pH tanks with higher Alk/Ca/Mag.
I was also thinking about equipment failure. If my Skimmer + CO2 Scrubber + Kalk fails, I'll be taking my tank from 8.35 to 7.9 pretty quickly.
So what combo would work best for my current situation?
pH: 8.25
Alk: 7.5
Ca: 450
Mag: 1400
This would give me slightly higher parameters than NSW and hopefully increased growth.
The one thing my tank has struggled with is getting Alk stability...which is what I've been ocusing on since achieving pH stability.
With what I theorized as mostly abiotic demand, just when I think I have it figured out it doesn't behave as expected.