Mushrooms and KH

[KM Wrasse]

Hi guys

Mushroom Corals should not care about kh since they are softies....however, everytime I raise my KH slowly to 10 up from 8.5 for SPS growth I will get shrooms that detach and the others don’t expand as much either. Has anyone else experienced this? Thanks for your help.

 

[Dragon52]

#reefsquad

 

[Retro Reefer]

What's your nutrient numbers.. NO3 & PO4? Not just shrooms buy my whole tank starts suffering if I push up alk because I have ULN conditions.. I just settled on keeping alk in the mid to high 7's

 

[KM Wrasse]

What's your nutrient numbers.. NO3 & PO4? Not just shrooms buy my whole tank starts suffering if I push up alk because I have ULN conditions.. I just settled on keeping alk in the mid to high 7's

I don’t run ULN... actually I run it a little more “dirty”... no3 = 5. PO4 .05-.1.00
I find at those levels the colors are awesome. . When I ran GFO like crazy my green slimer looked More like a beige slimer
My shrooms have adjusted to to the higher KH .. I’m keeping it at around 10.... I had a few detach but now they seem to be Stable. In the past when I changed KH ... same problem.. so lesson learned... have to move it slower I think
Thanks for the reply

 

[LRT]

Following currently I'm going to have to get back to this one.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Curious.

I dose manually once a week in my 90g DT. My alk gets down to 6.5 or 7.0 dKH. I manually dose it back up to 9.0 dKH. Usually in one shot of Randy's Recipe using a pool supply's soda ash. The tank is mostly zoas, but there are other softies including some muchrooms and some lps and sps as well. I see the polyps retract on some of the sps corals and in just a minute or two, they are back out and looking perfectly normal. None of the other corals show any reaction at all.

 

[KM Wrasse]

That is a pretty big Kh swing all at once ..just. be careful with the SPS so they don’t get stressed out... I use Seachem reef carbonate to maintain Kh. I put approx 45 ml per gallon of water in my top off water.(I have a 93 gallon DT) So everytime my ATO goes off it doses some alk. This way the Kh stays very stable... I adjust it slightly as the seasons change but very easy to keep it steady. Also the carbonate Will not affect calcium like a two part will. I use ESV B-ionic calcium as my CA supplement as well... that I just add to the DT...about once a week to keep the CA around 450
Thanks

 

[Ron Reefman]

That is a pretty big Kh swing all at once ..just. be careful with the SPS so they don’t get stressed out... I use Seachem reef carbonate to maintain Kh. I put approx 45 ml per gallon of water in my top off water.(I have a 93 gallon DT) So everytime my ATO goes off it doses some alk. This way the Kh stays very stable... I adjust it slightly as the seasons change but very easy to keep it steady. Also the carbonate Will not affect calcium like a two part will. I use ESV B-ionic calcium as my CA supplement as well... that I just add to the DT...about once a week to keep the CA around 450
Thanks

I've been doing this for 3 or 4 years now and it hasn't been an issue. I even watch the forest fire digi pull in it's polyps on the side where I'm adding tha soda ash into a wavemaker. But in less than 2 minutes they are back out and looking normal.

I never really considered adding alk to the top off water. But now my top off water feeds 2 different tanks and the 16g RFA breeding tank really doesn't use half as much ask as the 90g DT. I have a dosing pump that I used on a bigger sps tank in the past. But until I see more negative reactions, it's easier to do manually.

 

[KM Wrasse]

As they say... if ain’t broke don’t fix it! One thing I’ve learned... there are soooo many ways to keep a successful reef tank. I’m glad yours is doing well. Keep on doin what your doin! I have really simplified everything (Used to be an additive junkie) now that I stopped messin with the water every ten min ...my tank has never looked better. Thanks for your reply