Switching Salts/Lower Alkalinity

[SirShmyra]

I am about to change salt mix from Red Sea Coral Pro to Red Sea Blue bucket. I currently run my tank at 10.5 dkh at a salinity at 34 PPT. In switching to Red Sea Blue bucket, I plan to run salinity at 35 PPT and alkalinity at 8.0 dkh. The tank is has a water volume of 60 gallons and is a mixed reef with heavy zoas and euphellia with some SPS (across and montis) mixed in. I currently dose 2 part and have the dosing dialed in for stable paramaters. I plan to lower alkalinity gradually through water changes with the new salt.

My question is, what is a safe timeframe to make this change? I am primarily considering what an acceptable timeframe is to decrease alkalinity from 10.5 dkh to 8 dkh which will determine how gradually I will introduce the new salt.

Thanks!

 

[Spare time]

The drop isn't as much of a problem as the sudden increase is. You tank should drop in alk and that would do it for you. Out of curiosity, why switch to the blue bucket if you are not running an ULNS? The only difference for you would be slightly slower growth (unless you run ulns like I said).

 

[SirShmyra]

The drop isn't as much of a problem as the sudden increase is. You tank should drop in alk and that would do it for you. Out of curiosity, why switch to the blue bucket if you are not running an ULNS? The only difference for you would be slightly slower growth (unless you run ulns like I said).

Initially I thought that this tank would probably be pretty high in nutrients, but it has proven to be more reasonable nitrate around 10 and phosphate around .1 ppm. After doing more research, I have seen a fair amount of well established aquarist running 8 dkh with very high nutrients, with po4 into the .5's. After seeing this AND generally most people I talk to are running dkh in the 8-9 range I wanted to make the switch.

My tank currently consumes 1.1 dkh / day. So I dont want to completely cut off dosing as I'd be at the 8.0 mark in a matter of days from 10.5.