Ok. I will share the Red Sea mixed reef parameters. The specific numbers are not as important as knowing why we care about them and why Red Sea thinks enough to publish them. fwiw, I think their ALk number is high and can hard to maintain. That's ok. because I am going to recommend that you look at the other tank recommendations and start to think why they think different tanks should target different numbers (and why I think their mixed reef alk number is high).
The point here is that there are contradicting information that can confuse a beginner (and an old salt at times). but some commonality will start emerging. For example, we have probably messed you up with the advice not to chase numbers while demanding you tell us numbers.
In some cases, like Alk, stability is more important that the actual number provided you are in an acceptable range. I have a hard time maintaining alk at 11.5 dkh like Red Sea says I should. There are two good reasons for that. Higher Alk is more prone to precipitate (and form the white dots all over your pumps and hardware). Secondly, when ALK is high and there are sufficient nutrients in the water, coral growth should increase and thus consume the ALk (and CA and other good stuff) causing ALk to drop. See how this can get confusing. So my tank (and I cannot tell you why) likes to settle in the 8-9dkh range. So instead of chasing 11.5 dkh, I listen to my tank and it tells me it will be more table in the 8-9 dkh range. And so that is all I need to know (that and I think my NO3 and PO4 numbers are good for that range).
So look at the sps numbers. You would think with all that need to build coral skeletons, an sps tank would have high alk numbers. Nope. confused? You should be. If not, kudos.
So there appears to be some evidence that ALK, light and NO3 and PO4 levels are related. Seems that in these ULN - Ultra Low Nutrient - sps tanks, high Alk tends to lead to tip burning. I won't go into why (great threads in other sections on this) just to be aware of this before deviating from published numbers. Of course, to really confuse you, for every general consensus among groups of experienced successful hobbyist, there will be outliers with awesome sustainable tanks that will throw the consensus out the window.
See why we say don't chase number while demanding you tell us numbers? Stability is more important but numbers can give us clues as to why something isn't going as planned.
So here is the link to the Red Sea parameters and the mixed reef snapshot
Red Sea's recipes for easy & successful Reef-Keeping, Our Reef Care Recipes offer easy-to-understand and simple-to-implement instructions for reef maintenance, tailored to each type of aquarium.
www.redseafish.com
fwiw BRS recommends that new tanks (first year) target NO3 and PO4 a little lower since new tanks don't yet have a lot of microfauna, coraline, corals etc that help keep alage at Bay. Personally I like middle of the range. Trying to target very low NO3 and PO4 can be difficult and leave you will no room for error. Remember the post that said zeros can be just and bad and even worse that hight nutrients.
Ok, since this thread started with dosing ALk, and I spent a lot of time on Alk, I'll circle back on ALk. It's important to test your salt water mix before adding it to your tank since it's not all uncommon for salt mixes not to mix as predicted and the recipes for these mixes is usually for 1.022 SG and not 1.025/6 SG (35ppt). New salt water should be as close as possible to your target range and your tank. So don't copy me with the 8/9dkh Alk. When you mix your salt that will be a good indication of what parameters you will be able to maintain.
When you are ready to to do a water change, test your tank. That will tell you how much your tank consumed in between the water changes and whether or not you will need to dose anything.
One last thing, and great advice I recently got from Randy who schooled me on chloramines on something I blindly accepted from a reliable vendor, is do not take anything as gospel from a vendor. Even if their intentions may be sound, they are prone to draw conclusions that lead to product sales (and sometimes they are just outright snake oil lies)
PS. stop dosing until you can tell for sure by accurate testing that you need to dose anything,. A new tank with 3 softies shouldn't be consuming alk beyond the normal testing error range to warrant dosing. Normal testing error? test back to back to see how far apart your readings are. And don't stress, to this day I can't tell you for sure within .5 dkh when the color changed. I rely that I am consistently reading it the wrong way.
