Moving to a larger tank, increase ALK before moving?

[Reef of Fillory]

Go everyone, I'll be moving next Friday (8 days). Just had the realization that I don't have the means to mix up 55 gallons of red sea water.

I keep my ALK at 8-8.2 dkh. My only option for new salt water is going to be instant ocean from the LFS the day of the move.


I'm moving my 13.5 gallon nano to a 55 gallon with 15g sump. So I'll need an extra 60 or so gallons.

Any ideas on whether I should increase my dosing and up my ALK over the next week to closer to 10 dkh? I have mostly SPS with a few acans and a BTA.

Thanks in advance!

 

[richiero]

I would try to keep it as close to where it is right now during the whole move

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

I would leave things as stable as you can for now. The move will stress them enough and no point in stressing prior with a parameter change. You can lower the all of the new salt water with muriatic acid prior to the switch and just get the pH back up. I’d mix up the nsw, dose muriatic to match the alk (out of tank, in mixing buckets), match parameters as close as possible. Check the pH. Then begin the transfer. (I have not done it so don’t know ratios and the proper wait time, but I do recall reading up on it a bit as my tank likes the 7.5-8dkh best, but have a lot of IO reef crystals that has a higher Alk. My solution was to eliminate water changes via dosing with trace elements. Lol. Seems to be working well though.
Muriatic is dangerous, so be careful should you go this route.

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/muriatic-acid.260059/

 

[Reef of Fillory]

I would try to keep it as close to where it is right now during the whole move

That would of course be the best way to go about it, but i'm not going to be able to mix up water with my own salt in the amounts needed to fill the new tank for the move. Everything must happen in one day.

I would leave things as stable as you can for now. The move will stress them enough and no point in stressing prior with a parameter change. You can lower the all of the new salt water with muriatic acid prior to the switch and just get the pH back up. I’d mix up the nsw, dose muriatic to match the alk (out of tank, in mixing buckets), match parameters as close as possible. Check the pH. Then begin the transfer. (I have not done it so don’t know ratios and the proper wait time, but I do recall reading up on it a bit as my tank likes the 7.5-8dkh best, but have a lot of IO reef crystals that has a higher Alk. My solution was to eliminate water changes via dosing with trace elements. Lol. Seems to be working well though.
Muriatic is dangerous, so be careful should you go this route.

I appreciate the suggestion, however I will not have the time or space to hold and lower the ALK with muriatic acid while doing the move. I am moving across town and have limited time to get [everything] moved over. So the options are to either start raising the ALK now, and having a smaller jump when the transfer happens [adding 50 gallons of higher ALK water] or to let the tank take the shock of an 8 ALK to 10-11 ALK spike.

If I had space to mix water with muriatic acid, I would just use my Red Sea salt mix and make up fresh salt to the exact parameters I keep =)

I've also thrown around the idea of selling all of my corals this week, so that I'd just be transferring fish - and then restock the new tank with corals over time. This is of course not desirable since I've grown most of the frags out quite a bit in this small tank.