Big Alk Drop... but everything is alive... what is the fastest i can raise it without risks?

[ReefingInMadrid]

Hi guys,

went on vacation for a week and the person in charge of my reeftank somehow pull the line from the alk container, so my reeftank has been slowly dropping the alk.

Came back yesterday to find that my alk dropped from 7.4 (last reading before i left) to 5.4!!!... i don't know how many days it took to go down that ammount, but 99% of my LPS and SPS were still alive, only a couple of montiporas samarensis had partially bleached out...

I reconnected the lines and increased the daily dose around 20% to help with the raise. (my 150 gal consumes 110 ml of kh daily, increased the dosage to 135ml per day).. Today, 24 hours later, my alk has raised to 5.7... and everything is still alive and not looking very bad to be honest. Polyps on my montipora confusa are retracted, my euphillias aren't very happy, (but not looking very sad either) and surprisingly my acros haven't lost any tissue and are not (still) bleaching anywhere... the samarensis seem to be the most sensitive to this alk drop, but bleaching have not extended any further.

I understand that the only reason everything is still alive is because the drop hasn't happened overnight, and it probably took a couple of days... so I know I have to slowly raise it again to avoid a shock, but my question is:

How quickly should i raise it back to 7.5 to make sure i don't stress my coral too much and hopefully minimize loses??

I am aiming to 0.5 dkh daily as a maximum, but i would love to hear your thoughts.
I don't know how bad is to have an alk below 6 for my coral for that period of time...

@Randy Holmes-Farley would love to hear your input.

Rest of the parameters (Ca, Mg) are where they should. Nitrates and phosphates as well, where they usually are 12ppm Nitrate 0.06 phosphate.

Thanks in advance guys!

 

[dmy535]

I’ve always read don’t exceed 1.0 dkh in a 24hour period. So your current .5 is good.

 

[vetteguy53081]

If corals are doing as well as you say , add it G R A D U A L L Y. Nothing is fast in this hobby and often FAST=DISASTER. You want to test and monitor daily as you are making increases. This will lessen any chance of shock or overdose

 

[ReefingInMadrid]

Thanks for your input guys, today everything looks better, and still no losses so i will keep raising it at 0.5 dKh every 24 hours.. 6.1 today so i am out of the woods i guess... will see how my acros behave in the next few days.

Ty

 

[Tamberav]

I ran my tank 5.6-6 for many months purposely and the corals were fine including acros. When I pointed this out to someone they linked me a guy who has a beautiful acropora tank with low alk. His growth was so good he just ran his reactor wide open but didn’t add any 2 part as he wanted to keep it simple. So seems stability is what matters and not the number as much. Just bring it up slowly. 0.5 a day sounds good to me.

Here is the lovely tank that runs 4.8 to 5.4 alk. Interesting anywho

65 Gallon Reef Savvy Build aka *GemSavvy*

Beautiful colors!!

lareefclub.com

 

[ReefingInMadrid]

Good info Tamberav, i was worried bc i thought that having the alk below 6 was constantly damaging the coral... this proves otherwise.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

How quickly should i raise it back to 7.5 to make sure i don't stress my coral too much and hopefully minimize loses??

I am aiming to 0.5 dkh daily as a maximum, but i would love to hear your thoughts.
I don't know how bad is to have an alk below 6 for my coral for that period of time...

Seems good to me.