Sawdonkey’s 210 Build #2

Whoops. I think my corals are growing, cuz my alk slipped to 5.9! I’m still just using Kalk through my top-off, but I need to start making a stronger brew. My corals are getting sizable and the approach of spring comes with more moisture, so I have less evaporation. I know I have a long time before Kalk through the top off won’t keep up because it worked in my old tank and I had 5X the SPS.

95f651b74dfab060756f9ddbf2639ae9.jpg
 
Are you manually tracking your kalk, or is your graph generated through one of the auto kalk testers?
 
When your alk gets that low, do you notice your sps pe withdraws. I notice this.
 
Last edited:
Mjl714 said:
When your alk gets that low, do you notice your sps pe withdraws. I notice this.
Click to expand...

No, polyps are out and everything looks normal. I think as long as you stay in a 2 DkH range and don’t move too quickly, coral can tolerate it. In my opinion, people over exaggerate how sensitive coral are to alk fluctuations.

Now....did I just dump a bunch of alk to bring it back up? No. I’ll dump some alk(2-part style) now to get it from being dangerously low, and make a strong batch of Kalk solution to bring it up slowly over a week or so.
 
I thought i saw you’re using BRS pharmaceutical grade, have you noticed it’s cleaner than their regular kalk?
 
Mjl714 said:
I thought i saw you’re using BRS pharmaceutical grade, have you noticed it’s cleaner than their regular kalk?
Click to expand...

It seems to dissolve easier, but the only real meaningful difference is that it costs twice as much as their old Kalk. Either way, you don’t want to blow the sediment into your tank. I’d go back to the old stuff if I could....I don’t think they sell it anymore.
 
Sawdonkey said:
No, polyps are out and everything looks normal. I think as long as you stay in a 2 DkH range and don’t move too quickly, coral can tolerate it. In my opinion, people over exaggerate how sensitive coral are to alk fluctuations.

Now....did I just dump a bunch of alk to bring it back up? No. I’ll dump some alk(2-part style) now to get it from being dangerously low, and make a strong batch of Kalk solution to bring it up slowly over a week or so.
Click to expand...

I agree I test all maybe once a week. Once things settle in I don’t worry about it much. All swing will also be dependent on pH fluctuations. My pH varies wildly night-to-day so I’m willing to bet if I had an alk monitoring system it’d show alk fluctuations night-to-day as well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Orpheks, I know you’ve had them running for some time now, and was wondering how you are liking them?
 
Mjl714 said:
Nice, I’ve got lots of pods, but don’t recall seeing any mysis. More mouths to feed.
Click to expand...

I’ve always had a lot of pods, and you can see some in the chaeto in the vid, but mysis is new to me. I’ve been seeing them for a month or so, but never really looked at them closely. People on R2R confirmed they are mysis.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top