kuyatwo
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That's Red Sea if you want "accelerated growth"....per Redsea if you want "enhanced colorization" you need 8.2 dkh
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successful high alk SPS tanks
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That's Red Sea if you want "accelerated growth"....per Redsea if you want "enhanced colorization" you need 8.2 dkh
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Eckolancer
LED GURU
I run a dirty tank for sps (.35 p04) and am getting good growth rates. Now I also run high alk around 11.5-12dkh, mag sits above 1400 below 1450, cal I maintain at 500. I have to use about 50ml of cal a day to maintain it above 500. Nitrate, nitrites, ammonia all 0. Sandless bottom and sps mainly in my tank all doing great. Actually seem to get more growth in a month then most on a local forum.
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Mike J.
2500 Club Member
Well, after manually dosing for the last nine days and testing twice a day. I've decided to keep my parameters where they are now. Ca 450, Alk 3.2 meq/l, Mg 1360. I've kept it right on that for the last three days. I'm going to start auto dosing tomorrow. This article really helped me make up my mind; I'm in the red box and I need to stop fretting over it. Chemistry And The Aquarium: Solving Calcium And Alkalinity Problems ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog
Eckolancer
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Eckolancer
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This one is my favorite one. In person it it white with purple tips.
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kuyatwo
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I would think it would be easier to maintain higher alk with a ca rx than dosing. I know when I use to dose 2 part if my alk got above 10 dkh the ca would precipitate more easily as I had dose extra Ca to keep my levels above 400
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mcarroll
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If you are seeing precipitation while using a doser, you either need to dilute your solution or make your drips smaller/slower - or a combination of both. I've diluted by 50% or much more to help out in this respect. Keep your dilution math simple so you can easily compensate with the timing/quantity of doses so you're still getting the right ppm's into the tank. (e.g. 100 mL of solution diluted into 100mL of RODI would mean you have to dose twice as much solution, right?)
Switching to baking soda (not baked) also helped alleviate the situation for me as the extra CO2 moderated or eliminated any pH spikes during dosing.
It is true the higher your push the mineral levels the more likely precipitation becomes....but you really shouldn't have any unmanageable problems around/below 11dKh, 4 meq/L or 200 ppm.
-Matt
jaugermeister
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To be honest with you I couldn't disagree more. I have never seen a beautiful COLORFUL reef with high alk. Yes you may get your corals to surrive and even grow in those conditions but you will not have anything spectacular. The most amazing systems I have seen in my short 13 years in this hobby are always tanks that maintains alk at or around 8.5 and calc around 400. Personally I have seen amazing color and growth keeping my stats in that range in addition to simple maintenance and gfo/carbon filtering.
lakeviewink
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I agree 110%. 8.5 is the magic number for me.
jedimasterben
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Look up the Blu Coral method, with tanks running like that for many, many years, and tell us again how you've never seen a colorful reef with high parameters.
mcarroll
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All the SPS reefs from the past thru today that I'm familiar with are all well above NSW levels, or endeavoring to be so. No issues with coloration on any of them.
There are many other issues that add up to poorly colored corals though - low (~2.5 meq/L or less) alkalinity being one. From my experience it seems laughable to blame 9-11 dKH alk for coloration issues. Too many people over too great a time period have had too much success using that range as "gospel". Although just speaking hypothetically, I would have to think there would be another cause - or causes - in any such cases of color issues. (IME there always has been.)
-Matt
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There are many other issues that add up to poorly colored corals though - low (~2.5 meq/L or less) alkalinity being one. From my experience it seems laughable to blame 9-11 dKH alk for coloration issues. Too many people over too great a time period have had too much success using that range as "gospel". Although just speaking hypothetically, I would have to think there would be another cause - or causes - in any such cases of color issues. (IME there always has been.)
-Matt
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jedimasterben
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jaugermeister
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Really? Lol one system that takes a re tarded amount of time in maintenance when all you have to do is keep it simple. Yeah I bet you firmly believe in carbon dosing and ozone too. Do me a favor and post a pic of your high alk tanks and show off how easy it is to grow high end corals. Like I said in my previous post you can grow corals just not as colorful and well as keeping it simple.
jedimasterben
Bubble coral sting good
What? How is it more maintenance, or any less 'simple', as you put it? Same principles apply to a 'normal' tank, only scaled up. Did you even look at any of the tanks using that system, or even did any research into it?
The systems are almost all Berlin-based (which is good light, good flow, live rock, and the biggest skimmer you can afford) - you cannot get any simpler than that. Dump 10mL of an ultra-high protein food (with or without the somatotrophin) per 100g once a week, or more often if your biological filter can handle it, and increase your base parameters (which is as simple as increasing your dosing routine or adjusting a calcium reactor), and boom, Blu Coral.
Also, I think you might also want to do research into what carbon dosing and ozone injection actually do - it seems to me that you simply dismiss anything that you don't personally do or use as having no purpose - when they have a very defined purpose that is backed by science.
jaugermeister
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Talk is cheap people. Post some pics of your proven method of high alk. Its like someone boasting on how much of an expert they are and dealing with a tank crash at the same time.. haha
I've been learning in this hobby for years and have come to the final conclusion that if my tank and corals look better than yours then I'm not going to follow your methods.
Heavy skimming, weekly water changes of 10%, good lighting and schedule, carbon, gfo and most important water flow.
I never had a major crash nor lost multiple corals employing this technique.
Sorry for the blue cell pic just what I had on my phone...
I've been learning in this hobby for years and have come to the final conclusion that if my tank and corals look better than yours then I'm not going to follow your methods.
Heavy skimming, weekly water changes of 10%, good lighting and schedule, carbon, gfo and most important water flow.
I never had a major crash nor lost multiple corals employing this technique.
Sorry for the blue cell pic just what I had on my phone...
MattL22
Valuable Member
As far as sps goes for me alk above 9 I have big issues that takes weeks - months to recover from Im happy anywhere above 7.5 and below 9
Just recently alk spiked to 11 got rtn this was a spike so could have been from the quick spike but I've also had same issue when alk climbed slowly over weeks to 10
So I don't really know how it causes rtn for me but not for others ! Must be another variable
Just recently alk spiked to 11 got rtn this was a spike so could have been from the quick spike but I've also had same issue when alk climbed slowly over weeks to 10
So I don't really know how it causes rtn for me but not for others ! Must be another variable
jedimasterben
Bubble coral sting good
Good for you - but you are solidifying what I was saying - you simply dismiss anything that you do not do or use.Talk is cheap people. Post some pics of your proven method of high alk. Its like someone boasting on how much of an expert they are and dealing with a tank crash at the same time.. haha
I've been learning in this hobby for years and have come to the final conclusion that if my tank and corals look better than yours then I'm not going to follow your methods.
Heavy skimming, weekly water changes of 10%, good lighting and schedule, carbon, gfo and most important water flow.
I never had a major crash nor lost multiple corals employing this technique.
Sorry for the blue cell pic just what I had on my phone...
Measured growth rates of several Acropora and Montipora species maintained in a tank using the Blu Coral method are around 40cm per year. This link has some information on it: Need quick SPS growth - Marine Aquariums South Africa, and you'll find MANY pictures of aquariums using this method here: Italy's Best! Matured SPS Aquariums. - Reef Central Online Community
I will place some of these pictures here, which compared to your frag tank, I'd say it is no contest.
And these two are the same tank, taken 10 months apart.
iodio 0,06
ca 500
mg 1500
sr 30
ph 8,5
kh 12
Not all of the tanks above use somatotropin, but the common denominator is intense lighting, intense flow, high parameters, great filtration (using the Berlin method), and feeding of ultra-high protein fresh foods (which a lot of breaks down into amino acids, triggering extreme feeding responses from corals to where they will take in far more food than if just fed using 'normal' dry foods).
If you do decide to run your parameters at higher levels, you MUST accompany this with more light and more food or your corals will suffer from it, which is very common among tanks that have excellent filtration and are not being fed accordingly.
I may not have a 'stunning' tank by any means, but I at least do my research and learn the hows and whys for all of this, and I suggest that you do the same.
