Do higher parameters = super FAST growth? | BRStv Investigates

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What's your target Alk range?

  • 7 - 8 dKH

    Votes: 247 21.9%
  • 8 - 9 dKH

    Votes: 602 53.3%
  • 9 - 10 dKH

    Votes: 192 17.0%
  • 10 - 11 dKH

    Votes: 57 5.0%
  • 11 - 12 dKH

    Votes: 26 2.3%
  • Higher or lower? (Share with us!)

    Votes: 5 0.4%

  • Total voters
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Thanks! Really the dosage amount came from Aaron's meticulous testing schedule for all three parameters then dialing in the daily dose. Granted the first couple of months or so there was little to no dose needed, but as they began to grow we started to see an increasing need to supplement.

I believe those are Golden Damsels. ;)


Thanks to both answers! Appreciate the information and have a great day!
 
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When you are in the “few frags in a new tank” phase you need to test 2-3x a week (if not daily) and adjust your dosing accordingly. When you first add corals you won’t see much drop in your levels, but once the corals get settled in they will suddenly start growing and if you aren’t testing, they will drop the levels, **** themselves off, and then die. If you wait until you see they are unhappy to test params it’s too late.

Thank you.
 

ADAM

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Vote for 10-11, using RSCP salt my DKH level seems to sit around this level when Im doing WCs regularly. So when life gets in the way of WCs I just dose back to that same 11 dkh.
 

Ike

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That’s pretty low


And at those levels also dropped about 3 dKH a day in a 400 gallon system. Let's just say growth seemed ok ;) I think it's a mistake to not monitor nutrient levels with this "experiment" since slightly different levels could possibly make a big difference.
 

abraha

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Ryan,

What would you recommend for people that run carbon dosing. I run NOPOX with the recommended dkh of 8.
Would increasing it to 9 or 10 be a problem?
 

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Vote for 10-11, using RSCP salt my DKH level seems to sit around this level when Im doing WCs regularly. So when life gets in the way of WCs I just dose back to that same 11 dkh.

This is a cool experiment, but Red Sea has subscribed to this theory for a long time. It's why they offer two salts in the first place.
 

FO_Reef

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This is a cool experiment, but Red Sea has subscribed to this theory for a long time. It's why they offer two salts in the first place.
Yes, the theory that elevated levels promote faster growth has been around for a while, I don’t think Adam or BRS are making the claim that they thought this up. I haven’t seen any controlled testing being done on the theory until now.
 

MnFish1

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This was an excellent video - it would be interesting to see what would happen with more light in the low nutrient tank compared to the high nutrient tank? With Lower nutrients - I've found Higher PAR mitigates any growth differences as compared to higher nutrients and low light. For example many people suggest that if you're running a high alk - it might be best to turn down lights some.... Just a comment - love your videos @randyBRS
 

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As another reference point, In my 150 gallon reef I was running an alk of 10-10.5 dkh, and was consuming 105ml/day of alk and ca 2-part. I've since lowered my alk to 8.6 after a new batch of frags had some issues acclimating, and my daily consumption dropped to 65ml/day. Interestingly, a couple of my coral seem to have more pale colors at the lower alk, so I'm considering raising them up slowly by increasing my daily dose to 75ml. I'm interested to see where my alk stabilizes at with this daily dose over time. I love the idea of extra growth, but feel i didn't properly acclimate my new frags to the high alk well enough, causing issues with most for the 10 frags I added to my tank at the same time. Lucky, everything has recovered, or mostly recovered and now growing. All new frags are SPS.
 

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Great work. How much of the 598% increaser in bicarbonate consumption in the elevated tank do you think is due to precipitation of calcium carbonate? While there is an increase in visual growth, doesn't look like 598% more from the video. Do you think the elevated tank is on the edge of precipitation, and that is why it is apparently consuming so much?
 

MnFish1

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Great work. How much of the 598% increaser in bicarbonate consumption in the elevated tank do you think is due to precipitation of calcium carbonate? While there is an increase in visual growth, doesn't look like 598% more from the video. Do you think the elevated tank is on the edge of precipitation, and that is why it is apparently consuming so much?

This seems really high... Some of the differences were impressive - but - many I was kind of - ok maybe its a little bigger but...
 

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We did not run intentionally higher nutrient levels. Rather than monitor nutrient levels, we controlled nutrient input by feeding both tanks the same amount.

While your statement is probably right we have to limit the list of variables.

I would posit that NO3 and PO4 levels are a parameter. If the corals become nutrient limited (due to growth) the mineral parameters may become irrelevant to growth. Perhaps the feedings could be adjusted to maintain given levels, then track how much food is needed to maintain those levels.
 

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I have actually done this on my tank as an experiment and found similar results. Alk was kept at 10-12 cal at 450-475, and magnesium at 1450. I am definitely no expert by any means but its been quite interesting to see the changes over the last 3 months. I have before and after photos as well to show the growth. Also photos from the first day they were introduced into the tank. I did increase the feedings as well. No issues so far and i am happy with what has occurred for me. The only thing is that the color on some corals is a little dull. I suspect it is from the higher alk. The decision to now change back to "normal parameters" is quite the conundrum. Growth or better coloration? Decisions..decisions.
The real question is what would be the long term effects on continuing this level? Hmm..
Bob
Pics please!
 

Scorpius

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No reason to run anything higher than 8dkh. Running lower alkalinity gives you a buffer if you run low nutrients. High alkalinity and low nutrients always has been bad news bears for my tank.
 
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Great work. How much of the 598% increaser in bicarbonate consumption in the elevated tank do you think is due to precipitation of calcium carbonate? While there is an increase in visual growth, doesn't look like 598% more from the video. Do you think the elevated tank is on the edge of precipitation, and that is why it is apparently consuming so much?

A couple my thoughts here; at first glance 598% consumption does sound pretty astronomical. So much so that I absolutely checked everywhere for visual/meaningful signs of precipitate and I can tell you with 100% certainty...it is not present.

I'd be pretty confident in saying that we can't reasonably expect a direct 1:1 ratio for amount dosed to the tank versus calcium carbonate skeletal structure built, so I think hoping to see a 598% visual growth increase is a bit too large of an expectation. Along with that, there are probably a variety of other factors tied to the consumption of 60mLs per day that make it really tough to attribute directly to just coral growth alone and this early in the test, our eyes might not be the best measurement tool.

That said, I'm just as surprised at the differences in consumption and verified the data with Aaron. It's really going to be interesting if the same data holds as we continue the experiment over the next 8-months or more!
 
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This was an excellent video - it would be interesting to see what would happen with more light in the low nutrient tank compared to the high nutrient tank? With Lower nutrients - I've found Higher PAR mitigates any growth differences as compared to higher nutrients and low light. For example many people suggest that if you're running a high alk - it might be best to turn down lights some.... Just a comment - love your videos @randyBRS

Thanks! I'm pretty sure we have more growth tests slated around things like different PAR/Spectrum/Nitrates/Phosphates and such. When all is said and done, I really hope we can combine the results for all of these tests (pH, parameters, etc...) into a single test with controlled variables for each one. Meaning, if pH and higher parameters grow corals faster why not combine them and see what happens?
 
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