Ideal Alkalinity for SPS growth?

Max93

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I want to revive this and ask a question that no one has ever been able to answer for me.
If alk is 10, what should your par, and po4 and no3 be?

if alk is 9, what should your par, po4, and no3 be?

if alk is 8, what should your par, po4, and no3 be?

all I read is high alk = high nutrients. What is high nutrients???
 

Cory

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I want to revive this and ask a question that no one has ever been able to answer for me.
If alk is 10, what should your par, and po4 and no3 be?

if alk is 9, what should your par, po4, and no3 be?

if alk is 8, what should your par, po4, and no3 be?

all I read is high alk = high nutrients. What is high nutrients???
High alkalinity would best to have no3 of 10ppm or less and po4 of .10ppm or less. That is high nutrients to sps. But i dont think it matters too much as long as you dont have 0 for both and fading corals. Faded corals indicate low nutrients but not the only reason.
 

Max93

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High alkalinity would best to have no3 of 10ppm or less and po4 of .10ppm or less. That is high nutrients to sps. But i dont think it matters too much as long as you dont have 0 for both and fading corals. Faded corals indicate low nutrients but not the only reason.
Gotcha, I figured it was somewhere around the .08-.1 range but have never really read if a direct level of these things.

I’ve been having some acros receding but full PE lately, not all, and figured it had something to do with keeping my nutrients too high for too long. Currently have 9.4 alk and .18 po4 and 16 nitrates.

I’m reducing my feeding and skimming wet, I’ve been able to bring it down from .24 in about a week.
 

Cory

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Gotcha, I figured it was somewhere around the .08-.1 range but have never really read if a direct level of these things.

I’ve been having some acros receding but full PE lately, not all, and figured it had something to do with keeping my nutrients too high for too long. Currently have 9.4 alk and .18 po4 and 16 nitrates.

I’m reducing my feeding and skimming wet, I’ve been able to bring it down from .24 in about a week.
High po4 brings on many unseen effects that harm sps. Inhibition of strong calicum structure is well known. However there are many microorganisms that may gain an advantage on sps with higher po4. Higher po4 also means higher detritus accumulation.
 

wculver

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I seem to find a lot of contradicting information.
Some say high, like 10dkh (red sea)
Others say low, like 7.5

I'm keeping mine at 9.5 right now. My SPS all seems happy. I see a lot of people talking about tip burn with high alk. My nutrients are pretty low and consistent. .03 phosphate and 2 ppm nitrate.
According to some of the stuff ive read, my acro tips should be burning.
What am I missing?
If you can keep those numbers, all of them, at these levels then you're good to go. What starts to chip away is when levels start to vary. Higher alkalinity is generally accepted to have less forgiveness. With an established tank and stability that'll be the key to SPS growth. With the 9.5 ALK it'll actually give you a little bit of a boost over someone at say 8.5.
 

_Jake_Simek_

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The higher the ALK the faster the skeleton growth, if the the other perimeters that contribute to the flesh growth are low such as po4 and no3 then the flesh can't keep up with the skeleton then the tips get burnt because the flesh is to thin on tips.
this is the best answer right here
 

Streetcred

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Randy Homes-Farley wrote a good article on water parameters some years ago that I think are worth revisiting.
 

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92Miata

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I seem to find a lot of contradicting information.
Some say high, like 10dkh (red sea)
Others say low, like 7.5

I'm keeping mine at 9.5 right now. My SPS all seems happy. I see a lot of people talking about tip burn with high alk. My nutrients are pretty low and consistent. .03 phosphate and 2 ppm nitrate.
According to some of the stuff ive read, my acro tips should be burning.
What am I missing?

What you're missing is that food and light are also part of the equation.

A) High light increases oxidative stress - zooxanthelle release oxygen as a biproduct of photosynthesis (and oxygen is needed, but also highly reactive). Tip burn is oxydative stress that is not being repaired.

B) High Alkalinity causes faster skeletal deposition (IE, growth) - which means the coral has to produce tissue quicker, and zoothanthelle need to reproduce quicker.

Corals need a certain amount of nitrogen and phosphorus to repair damaged tissue (A) and grow new tissue/zooxanthelle (B). They can get this nitrogen and phosphorus through pulling ammonia and inorganic phosphate out of the water column, or consuming bacteria/etc in their slime layers. (Corals aren't real interested in nitrate - its really low energy).

Every time you feed, you're creating short term bursts where phosphate levels and ammonia levels are much higher in the water column, then bacteria reproduce and are in some amount consumed. IE, you can have a tank with .03 PO4 in the water column that has very little available and starving corals, or you can have a tank that has .03 PO4 in the water column, and gets fed a ton, and has corals that have plenty.

IE, what you can directly measure is only a very small part of the picture.
 
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SamMule

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What you're missing is that food and light are also part of the equation.

A) High light increases oxidative stress - zooxanthelle release oxygen as a biproduct of photosynthesis (and oxygen is needed, but also highly reactive). Tip burn is oxydative stress that is not being repaired.

B) High Alkalinity causes faster skeletal deposition (IE, growth) - which means the coral has to produce tissue quicker, and zoothanthelle need to reproduce quicker.

Corals need a certain amount of nitrogen and phosphorus to repair damaged tissue (A) and grow new tissue/zooxanthelle (B). They can get this nitrogen and phosphorus through pulling ammonia and inorganic phosphate out of the water column, or consuming bacteria/etc in their slime layers. (Corals aren't real interested in nitrate - its really low energy).

Every time you feed, you're creating short term bursts where phosphate levels and ammonia levels are much higher in the water column, then bacteria reproduce and are in some amount consumed. IE, you can have a tank with .03 PO4 in the water column that has very little available and starving corals, or you can have a tank that has .03 PO4 in the water column, and gets fed a ton, and has corals that have plenty.

IE, what you can directly measure is only a very small part of the picture.
This is probably the best explanation I have seen yet. Thank you very much! Also, FWIW, in the year or two that has passed since I started this thread, I have found much more success running my alkalinity between 7-8 and higher nutrients. PO4 around .2-.3(hannah)and nitrates in the 12-25 range(nyos)
IMG_20221124_172111.jpg
 

thatmanMIKEson

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This is probably the best explanation I have seen yet. Thank you very much! Also, FWIW, in the year or two that has passed since I started this thread, I have found much more success running my alkalinity between 7-8 and higher nutrients. PO4 around .2-.3(hannah)and nitrates in the 12-25 range(nyos)
IMG_20221124_172111.jpg
Very nice, that's great! Tank looks great too!
 

homer1475

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When I used to run higher(9 to 11), always had issues keeping SPS long term. If they lived for a month, they were good to go for a long time, but that was few and far between.

Once I lowered my ALK down to 7.0 to 7.5 I have 0 issues keeping SPS long term.

My nutrient levels have always been 10 to 20ppm nitrates, and 0.1 to 0.2 phosphates.
 

92Miata

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This is probably the best explanation I have seen yet. Thank you very much! Also, FWIW, in the year or two that has passed since I started this thread, I have found much more success running my alkalinity between 7-8 and higher nutrients. PO4 around .2-.3(hannah)and nitrates in the 12-25 range(nyos)


My experience matches yours and @homer1475 's experience - I have found acropora to be much more resilient in the 6.0-8.0 dkh range. They seem way more touchy at higher alkalinity (which makes sense to me - faster skeletal growth means that nutrient deficiencies do damage way faster).
 

Jeff Jarry reef

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I keep my ALK 8.5 - 9.2
Nitrates 15-20
Phos ppb 25 hanna .
Par 450 - 550 some places are 600+ near top of some coral.. just like mentioned above all tanks are different mine does great with these parameters!
Screenshot_20221121-085546_Photos.jpg
 
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