Alkalinity and natural seawater

[hails]

So I am using natural seawater and have been manually dosing small amounts of tropic Marin all for reef to maintain around 7 dkh in my 120g mixed reef. I don’t have a huge amount of coral yet, but water changes aren’t quite keeping up, and I’ve just invested in a doser and bought aquaforest 123. My question is whether to keep my alk around the same level as my new water or not? I am a fisherman so I bring water home regularly and change it a lot, and I don’t see how to maintain an elevated dkh of say 8 or 9 if I am constantly adding nsw with a dkh of around 6.5-7. Will my corals benefit a lot by a higher dkh? And is there an easy way to maintain a higher alkalinity? Or is it safe to just maintain the level of the nsw? Sorry for the long post! And thanks in advance

 

[ReefRusty]

I am in the same boat here, no pun intended but I add alk to my water that I'm changing over so its not a big swing and add accordingly to raise my alk. Also natural sea water has lower mag at around 1250 and calc at 400 so I also dose a small amount in the new NSW.

 

[Jekyl]

I use baking soda to keep mine at above 8dkh. There's a calculator on the reef chemistry forum. Coral seem to like it

 

[Anubisxii]

I would keep alk close to what your water is. I keep my alk around 8.5 so if my salt mix or I buy nsw is below that I dose into the water container so it matches as close as I can. If salt mix water is higher that's not as bad as long as your not doing a 30% water change with something like red sea coral pro at 11dkh. Just keep alk within a 1.0 range within 24 hours imo and your ok.

Sps corals are what care the most about alk in my experience.

 

[hails]

I am in the same boat here, no pun intended but I add alk to my water that I'm changing over so its not a big swing and add accordingly to raise my alk. Also natural sea water has lower mag at around 1250 and calc at 400 so I also dose a small amount in the new NSW.

That makes sense...what alk is your tank? Do you see many benefits to keeping it higher rather than just maintaining the nsw?

 

[hails]

I would keep alk close to what your water is. I keep my alk around 8.5 so if my salt mix or I buy nsw is below that I dose into the water container so it matches as close as I can. If salt mix water is higher that's not as bad as long as your not doing a 30% water change with something like red sea coral pro at 11dkh. Just keep alk within a 1.0 range within 24 hours imo and your ok.

Sps corals are what care the most about alk in my experience.

So as my nsw is pretty low in alk would it be fine to keep it at that? Or would you dose the nsw with alk supplement before a water change? Just trying to figure out what level I should maintain...it would be easiest to maintain the level of the sea water but is there a big advantage to keeping it higher ?

 

[ReefRusty]

You will still need to dose, corals will utilise alk and this causes it to drop. I have mine at 8-8.3 to be honest I haven't noticed mich difference in corals maybe my leather hand would be mostly affected but it adapts to the conditions.

 

[Daniel92481]

I try to keep my ALK as close to NSW as possible. One benefit of having higher ALK might be that you may not have to dose ALK and Ca once you keep stony corals. I try to keep it as simple as possible. If my ALK dips below 7, I dose. Simple enough for the corals I have.