How does coral death impact the water chemistry?

[Gribbles]

Can dying corals impact our chemistry by dissolving or releasing CaCO3 or something?

Over the past several days I've had a moderate increase in my alk, 8.2 on Sunday to 9.6 today (repeated and got 10.0 - all by hanna checker)

I also increased my AllForReef dosing recently, but I am surprised it increased this much as I've slowly been increasing the dose over several months and this alk jump is much larger than previous adjustments.

The only other thing I can think of is that I had a medium sized stylo die from what I think is aggression from a nearby poccilopora. Is that possibly the cause?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Any dissolution of calcium carbonate would be very minor. Seawater is normally already overloaded with calcium carbonate and more cannot dissolve.

Like any dead creature, it can release ammonia, organics, phosphate, and other material as it decays.

 

[Baby Damsel 219]

yes I had a colony that died and raised my alk so high the next night

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

yes I had a colony that died and raised my alk so high the next night

I do not think the death directly caused the alk rise. It would have stopped taking up alk, and if you kept dosing as before, alk might rise by the amount it was using.

 

[Gribbles]

Yup, must be the All for Reef increase. Wasn't expecting that much of a jump especially since this will be the 5th month in a row where I've increased the dosage by the same amount. Surprised I overshot so much.

Would you recommend turning it off for a couple days or just dialing it back (50% maybe) for awhile?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There’s nothing wrong with the current level, but if you want it back where it was, I’d skip a dose or two and maybe reduce the dose.