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SouL_Shaker
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Isn't it too low?I keep mine at 8.
How much alk is suggested on sps?
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Reef_Junkies
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Natural Sea Water is 7 so I think 8 is good.... however I see the concern for closed systems like our aquariums fluctuating which is also my concern for Alk being in the low range.
JaxZoaFreak
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How do you guys lower your alk? Mine is at 12 right now and I would love to get it around 8-9. I'm just starting to get into sps. Thanks!
Reef_Junkies
Active Member
Good call on the Red Sea Salt. I've been using the PRO this whole time and never paid attention to the elements. Just ordered a 175 gallon bucket of the Non-PRO Red Sea Salt
I've ran NOPOX for the last 12 months you need to look into gfo and NOPOX, Red Sea wrote me an email and in short told me they wouldn't recommend the use of both.
I keep alk around the mid 8's all corals are doing fine.
I don't use there alk, ca, or Mag the powders were just to much daily work. I use Randy's two part with dosing pumps
And the Red Sea color A,b,c and d color
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SouL_Shaker
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You have too much flow in your tank I guess.my alk 9, cal 420, mag 1450
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SouL_Shaker
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Mine is 12 dkh . 475 CA , 1420 MG , 0.03 Po4 , 7 No3 . Is that bad
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In any tank there can never be enough flow. Flow is so important. I have been playing with flow I my new tank. Using different powerheads and adjusting the flow the pump puts out. In the beginning of a new reef you deal with the rock work and how that deflects the out out of a powerhead and time goes by one needs to adjust flow due to coral growth and its deflection of the flow from the powerhead.
In my new tank I was having an issue with algae at the bottom and the top of the rock work. I had two pumps in the tank one would think that would be more than enough flow in the tank a IM 40. So I decided to try a MP 10 on the tank in short pulse mode. I turned off the other two pumps. And left just the MP 10 running with in 24 hours all of the brown slime algae was gone from the tank. I learned a valuable lesson on flow doing this.
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SouL_Shaker
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I have vortech mp60 and mp40 in my tank. There is much more flow than recommended range for sps... And I can only place milepora's in front of vortech MP60. I can't place any other coral.
But there is a good job doing vortech MP40 on the other side of the tank. Gorgonia's and carnation corals are pretty happy with the flow.
Frequently I think if I made a mistaken buying MP60 and MP40 instead of 2 MP40.
ime alk level should be referenced to your nutrient load.
if you have high nutrients then bump the alk up. nutrients being no3/po4. to avoid them browning you will need to intensify the lighting to make use of those nutrients. 10-20ppm no3.
if you have low nutrients 8dkh is a common baseline. lighting isnt as crucial for coloration. 5-10ppm no3.
if you have ultra low nutrients. 7dkh. ultra low being less than 2ppm no3.
this is all assuming you follow redfield.
also between low and ultra low is finicky. the test kit matters less, the colors of the corals matter more. the reason being higher flow consumes more available nitrate in the water. so a 0 reading with mp60s can be limited by flow, while a 0 reading with a walmart powerhead is limited by nutrient availability (if we follow sps common rules)
with regards to higher nutrients: lighting is generally the limiting factor.
if you have high nutrients then bump the alk up. nutrients being no3/po4. to avoid them browning you will need to intensify the lighting to make use of those nutrients. 10-20ppm no3.
if you have low nutrients 8dkh is a common baseline. lighting isnt as crucial for coloration. 5-10ppm no3.
if you have ultra low nutrients. 7dkh. ultra low being less than 2ppm no3.
this is all assuming you follow redfield.
also between low and ultra low is finicky. the test kit matters less, the colors of the corals matter more. the reason being higher flow consumes more available nitrate in the water. so a 0 reading with mp60s can be limited by flow, while a 0 reading with a walmart powerhead is limited by nutrient availability (if we follow sps common rules)
with regards to higher nutrients: lighting is generally the limiting factor.
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I use nopox alk is 8.5-9, I've run it for the last year or so. I dose a range of 3-5 ml every morning, I move the range up and down per what I'm seeing in the tank. Currently I'm sitting at N03 zero and P04 .02 so I will back that down to 3 ml per day for the next week to attempt to let N03 come up just a bit. Water volume is 100 gal
