What's your Alkalinity goal?

[Reefer_Madness]

Just curious about this one. The suggested range is between 7-11 dKH or 125-200 ppm. That's a pretty big range and I'm curious what everyone's personal goal is.

 

Mine is 170 ppm or 9.5 dKH.

[tpallas]

Stable

[AlanM]

150ppm is where I run my pumps towards.  3.0meq/l

[Marc Weaver]

8-8.5dKH.  Anything 9 or over and I get burnt tips.

[Reefer_Madness]

Need more data. Bump

[zygote2k]

stable- numerical value irrelevant

[gmerek2]

I keep a stable 9-9.5. That way if my doser clogs, fails or whatever I have time to catch it before it gets below 7. And also time to catch it raising before it gets dosed up too high also.

[pizzaguy]

7

[sethsolomon]

if my phosphates are over .2 and nitrates over 10ppm I like to shoot for an alk of 10 dkh and if my nitrates and phosphates are near 0 then I shoot for about 7.5-8 dkh

[Sharkey18]

8 to 8.5

[s2nhle]

8-8.5

[JeffG93]

+1 for stable.

[matt]

if my phosphates are over .2 and nitrates over 10ppm I like to shoot for an alk of 10 dkh and if my nitrates and phosphates are near 0 then I shoot for about 7.5-8 dkh

 

Can you elaborate on the rationale? Curious, hoping to learn something new 

[matt]

7-8, stable is the real priority and I shoot to be where my salt mix gets me rather than adding additional alk during water changes

[AlanM]

Rich Ross had an interesting experiment he did with different Alk levels and found that his tank did well up really high or low, but not so great in the middle. He showed the data in his talk to us around a year ago.

 

Lots of folks say that they get "burnt tips" if they are running high Alk on a truly ultra low nutrient system. I have never been clear what burnt tips means, but I think it is new growth with no color or xoos.

[ridetheducati]

I have never been clear what burnt tips means, but I think it is new growth with no color or xoos.

 

Under normal conditions, Acropora axial corallite is shaped like an eraser on the end of a pencil, relatively square.  Some hobbyist experience burnt tips or deformed axial corallites when alk is high in relation to nutrient levels.  The deformed corallite may look like it collapsed on itself or become round instead of the square eraser shape.  The rounding effect is due to tank water flow.  I believe the coral builds its skeleton at a pace that the symbiotic algae can not keep up, preventing the tip from strengthening.  Low nutrients and high Alk = building bricks without straw

[sethsolomon]

Ride and Alan are right.  so basically you have to keep your ratios in order to keep consistent growth.  Too much of one thing can harm the corals.

[Reefer_Madness]

Under normal conditions, Acropora axial corallite is shaped like an eraser on the end of a pencil, relatively square. Some hobbyist experience burnt tips or deformed axial corallites when alk is high in relation to nutrient levels. The deformed corallite may look like it collapsed on itself or become round instead of the square eraser shape. The rounding effect is due to tank water flow. I believe the coral builds its skeleton at a pace that the symbiotic algae can not keep up, preventing the tip from strengthening. Low nutrients and high Alk = building bricks without straw

That is basically the analogy I used as well. Just a theory, but sure seems to be spot on.

[Reefer_Madness]

Rich Ross had an interesting experiment he did with different Alk levels and found that his tank did well up really high or low, but not so great in the middle. He showed the data in his talk to us around a year ago.

 

Lots of folks say that they get "burnt tips" if they are running high Alk on a truly ultra low nutrient system. I have never been clear what burnt tips means, but I think it is new growth with no color or xoos.

That's super interesting about the high/low experiment. I haven't seen the results, but I wonder if it was high and low but balanced.