What should my Alk and Calcium levels be?

[Meloco14]

Currently my alkalinity is at 3.0 meq/L and my calcuim is 390 mg/L. My book (Natural Reef Aquariums, John Tullock) says Alk should be 2.5-5.0 meq/L and Calcium 400-475 mg/L. My Seatest calcium test recommends calcium levels between 410-450. I use C-Balance as my calcium/alkalinity supplement, and it recommends calcium between 350-450, and alk of 2.5-3.5. My Seachem alkalinity test kit recommends alk of 4-6meq/L. I don't have any stony corals, so no big drain on calcium. I would like to speed up my coralline growth, so I am thinking of raising the calcium a little, maybe to 425 or so. My pH is around 8.1-8.2, will raising alkalinity help raise the pH up to 8.2-8.3? Which of these recommended levels should I follow? Any advice is appreciated. TIA

 

[hdtran]

I'd shoot for the mid-range of Tullock's recommendation (e.g. 3.5 meq/L and 430ppm calcium). But that's a target.

I'm not concerned about pH of 8.1 to 8.2.

Raising alkalinity will not raise pH, it will make your pH resistant to changes due to metabolism.

So your water levels are OK. If you want to, you can try increasing both alk & calcium a bit (but not at the same time, as they sort of fight each other).

There's a great article about it in the Advanced Aquarist Online archives (I think Nov 2002).