could high alk cause this?

[codydemmel4]

I moved my setup where everything was stable and growing good. well i stupidly made all new saltwater with IO which came out at 11 alk, 380 calc. I raised my calc to 420 then drip acclimated the corals and moved then in. I had no other option as they were just in buckets and all the old saltwater was down the drain.

My old setup was 7.5-8.5 alk and 420 calc. Could this high alk be the cause of this in some of my coral? All of them took a hit but these are obviously dying and I plan to frag the good parts when I get home from work tonight.

I also am going to my LFS and buying Red Sea as that mixes to 7-8 alk and changing out as much water as posisble around 60 gallons of the 200 gallon system I have.

Any other suggestions?

 

[jda]

No. Unequivocally, no.

Disturbed anoxic to oxic areas, and vice versa, from a move is likely more of a cause. You very likely mini-cycled.

Just leave the alk alone or you could mess them up even more.

If you do want to mess with it, you don't have to change water. Muratic Acid will lower alk. You won't need much - there is formula that you can google. A few MLs might lower the tank 1 dkh, or more. I think that IO is the best salt on the market - I do add a bit of Muratic to lower the alk when I get in high-color mode for my tank but most of the time, I just use it as-is. There are a lot of really fantastic tanks that use IO straight out of the box.