SPS Dominant: What do you keep your alaklinity at and why?

[AquamanE]

6.6 to 7.0.

This is a bit of a tricky question, though since it is constantly falling. I have a CaRx which today is maintaining about a 6.8 dKh. In a month, this will be down to 6.5 as the corals grew and have more demand. ...so I will turn it up to where it is maintaining 7.0 and then wait for it to fall again.

I find that calcification is better with more NSW alk, phosphate and nitrate, but all three need to be low together. This gives me the fastest growth and brightest color with more contrast.

Once I learned how to lower alk in saltwater with Muratic Acid, I have been near NSW and never looked back. Gallons * dKh drop * .123 is the mls of Muratic Acid to use. It can take a day or two to drive off all of the CO2 that you create and raise the PH back up. Do not ever do this in a tank, but I do it every time with my freshly mixed setup.

FWIW - when I started doing this in 1992, I did not have a fuge and had nitrate around 5 and phosphate around .5 (so hard to test back then) and I could keep alk at 12 quite reasonably... but 12 did not work too well when the caluerpa (and later chaeto) started to keep my N and P around NSW levels.

Man dosing Muratic Acid scares the heck out of me. Why not just use salt in your Alk range?

 

[Bpb]

None exists

 

[DanConnor]

I run the alk at 9.5. Whenever it gets lower (when I don't adjust CA rxr to keep up with growth) I get color loss and tissue loss on the tips.

 

[jda]

Why use an inferior salt when this is so easy and safe to do? Instant Ocean has been the best salt on the planet for more than two decades and it has always been dead-on-balls accurate each time that I use it. This always sounds harsh, but if a hobbyist cannot handle a bit of Muratic Acid well, then they might not have the constitution for the rest of the hobby - kalk can be just as dangerous. Tropic Marin Pro Reef gets close, but it still is not low enough and needs treated... and it is around 3-4x as expensive around me.

 

[Christopher Davis]

Sense this is an all related thread, How do I lower alk without doing a water change? Mines coasting at 14 which has me pretty nervous all the corals are going fine but this just seems way way to high, normality I run about 10 given my fish load but my system contracted Velvet and all this fish have been in qt for 4 weeks now. Think there could be a correlation to the spike in alk? Also I had a minor calcium spike but it’s under.l control thoughts? Doser is currently dosing 0ppm per day for alk

 

[Bpb]

Why use an inferior salt when this is so easy and safe to do? Instant Ocean has been the best salt on the planet for more than two decades and it has always been dead-on-balls accurate each time that I use it. This always sounds harsh, but if a hobbyist cannot handle a bit of Muratic Acid well, then they might not have the constitution for the rest of the hobby - kalk can be just as dangerous. Tropic Marin Pro Reef gets close, but it still is not low enough and needs treated... and it is around 3-4x as expensive around me.

Agree. IO is too USABLE to bother paying 4x as much for a salt with similar parameters. It’s just unnecessary. And as I said. No commercial salts out there mix at 6.5-7 dkh with 450 ppm calcium at 1.026. I won’t even say “none that I’m aware of”. If such a salt existed it would be pretty well made aware of by most serious acro keepers who tread on a lower more natural alkalinity.

Instant ocean is as good as it gets because it has a complete element profile. The alk is high but not obnoxious, and the price is right. I will still never understand why a natural parameter salt still isn’t out there.

 

[DanConnor]

How do I lower alk without doing a water change?

Stop (or lower) however you are adding it, the coral growth will remove it.

Or you could do a water change.

 

[Chad3407]

6.6 to 7.0.

This is a bit of a tricky question, though since it is constantly falling. I have a CaRx which today is maintaining about a 6.8 dKh. In a month, this will be down to 6.5 as the corals grew and have more demand. ...so I will turn it up to where it is maintaining 7.0 and then wait for it to fall again.

I find that calcification is better with more NSW alk, phosphate and nitrate, but all three need to be low together. This gives me the fastest growth and brightest color with more contrast.

Once I learned how to lower alk in saltwater with Muratic Acid, I have been near NSW and never looked back. Gallons * dKh drop * .123 is the mls of Muratic Acid to use. It can take a day or two to drive off all of the CO2 that you create and raise the PH back up. Do not ever do this in a tank, but I do it every time with my freshly mixed setup.

FWIW - when I started doing this in 1992, I did not have a fuge and had nitrate around 5 and phosphate around .5 (so hard to test back then) and I could keep alk at 12 quite reasonably... but 12 did not work too well when the caluerpa (and later chaeto) started to keep my N and P around NSW levels.

If I read this right .123ml of acid will lower a gallon of io to what you run? Or at least close depending on what a batch mixed to.

 

[Camaro Show Corals]

7.5to 8.0 for me. Although my po4s (0.08)and no3 (4) levels are low it's not what I call ultra low how ever I'm using the red sea salt in the blue bucket and that's around where it mixes too. I was using the black bucket for a while but my corals wouldn't grow then slowly died off. Ever since I swapped salt and kept a lower dKH I have had fewer problems.

I'm doing the switch right now

 

[mckinney0171]

11.5 Red Sea reef care program.

 

[Christopher Davis]

Stop (or lower) however you are adding it, the coral growth will remove it.

Or you could do a water change.

I figured as much! I stopped adding and will let the corals pull out naturally! THX

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

I run NSW and that is 7.7 KH and 1290 mag 400 calcium. I just use a 1 tsp per gallon ratio of kalk in my ato to keep up the parameters of calc and alk. I used to buy pre salted rodi as only have a 24 gallon, that used to be 9.5kh and my montipora looked browner. I've been running nsw for just over a year, and the colours look much better. I don't test for nitrate or phosphate so can't say what relationship to ulns and lower kh are on this tank.
I used to just chase numbers on my old tank and it did my head in keeping kh around 9.5 and calcium at 450 with mag around 1350. I couldn't keep sps frags alive long term. So I test my collected nsw and keep the parameters as close to that, as they say "mother knows best".

 

[Purpletank]

Wow! This is the best info on SW Reef chemicals I’ve read yet. Thanks for a great discussion!

 

[markalot]

6.6 to 7 because the tank settled there and everything did quite well. I rarely do water changes and when I do it's not enough to swing KH.

 

[Crabs McJones]

I've been keeping mine between 8.0 and 8.5 and my calcium between 420 and 480. Since doing this my growth has gone nuts

 

[lapoza]

Im a beginner at all of this so I am open to all the experts advise here. I bought a building last year that had a 265 in it. Tank had sat empty for 3 years, I set the tank up in November last year. It had an old inland aquatics dump bucket style algae scrubber on it, and since them ive switched to a turbo scrubber that I installed about 3 weeks ago.

Anyhow I use instant ocean reef crystals, ive acquired a lot of SPS colonies in the last few months but my calcium never goes down. Seems that when I do a water change my calcium shoots up to around 550-580. Magnesium is pretty consistent around 1300. My issue is with the algae scrubbers ive been using most of my levels are undetectable except phosphate. I am hovering around .08-.12. I can't get it to drop below that with just the Algae scrubber. I will be adding chaeto in the fuge and im hoping that helps lower it some. So ive been trying to keep All in the mid 8 range. I am dosing Alk by hand daily as I don't have a calcium reactor yet, which I do hope to add in the near future. I have a queen angel and an emperor, naso tang, and the three of them will eat non stop if I let them, so im guessing my phosphates have something to do with how much I feed them. Problem is if I dial back the feedings my queen will start pecking at the SPS.

So given my situation with my filtration method, fish I have, trying to do only sps. Im curious where I should be keeping Alk at with my calcium and mag levels. Most SPS is growing very good, I have had some RTN in some mariculture colonies ive bought, but everything Ive gotten from fellows aquarists in the area is thriving. I do see cycles of milli's not having any PE and its normally when there are big swings in Alk levels.

Looking at my data log on Mar 20th my all was 8.3, I was able to keep it consistent until May 4th when I setup a QT tank for a few new fish, I filled that tank with water from my DT and replaced 30 gallons of DT water with fresh made Reef crystals. this was essentially a 10% water change on the DT. My alk went from 8.1 to 10 and calcium from 450 to 580 just by doing this water change. With the scrubbers I haven't been doing water changes and with the spikes in elements I try to avoid them

Sorry this is a big rambling of info, just trying to put everything going on in this post so I can get the best advice

 

[madweazl]

7.1-7.5 for me typically. I use IO and like a few others above, use muriatic acid to lower the alkalinity (3ml in five gallons of IO gets it right around 7.5 dKh followed by approx 18 hours of aeration to bring the pH back up). Calcium is usually right 400 and magnesium in the 1300-1350 range.

 

[declanisadog]

8.4 always. no reason other than everything seems happy, and I don't have to do much to keep i there.

 

[BigJohnny]

7.1-7.4. ran it higher (8-9) on a previous tank and had much more issues with acros. Salt mix is also in that range.

 

[Fence13]

7.4 currently, but my tank has never really liked the alk above 8dk. Always seems to be lower than everyone else around me.