Reef Crystals, DKH and Large Water Changes

WhatCouldGoWrong71 · Nov 28, 2023

I have been targeting 8.3 for my DKH (NO3/PO4 - 9.0/.03). I use Reef Crystals and I do 2% daily AWC. However, I am in the middle of switching over to a CARX and have been battling dialing this thing in at first (finally got the affluent to 25, so I feel like I accomplished something, I think I have to stop reading what other people are doing...). Well, at one point I was really frustrated and was going to do a 50% water change to reboot, as my DKH went up to 10.3. Somehow in my frustration I still thought through what the RC parameters are out of the bucket and realized (and confirmed by testing) that the DKH was even higher in my mixing bin, 11+. When I get my CARX dialed in around 8.5 ish, what do I do if I have to do a 50% or greater water change? How do I not tick off all my SPS? How do I dial it down? Shut off the CARX and wait for the tank to naturally get to the target and fire it back up? Won't it take a minute to get the CARX online,
causing the DKH to fall past the target till the CARX can catch up?

Thoughts?

Mods please move if I put this in the wrong area.

exnisstech · Nov 28, 2023

I've read that some people reduce alk in their fresh salt mix but I'm sorry I can not remember the chemical used. I've also heard of people switching to a salt with parameters closer to what they like to run. I try to keep alk 8ish. I use reef crystals and instant ocean in a 50/50 mix. I think alk was a little over 10 on a fresh batch when I tested (been a long time) I do smaller changes and everything is doing fine. If I'm doing a 50% WC it's most likely an emergency and I'm probably not going to worry about the alk. But now that I think about it I only have one tank small enough to do a 50% WC anyway. I mix 28g a batch.