I only have some monti caps for sps & hammer coral lps in addition to assorted soft coral. I've been somewhat delinquent in my testing routine, but when I do, I generally find alk to be chronically low. My dosing routine is erratic as well, consisting of throwing 7 to 14 teaspoons of either baked baking soda or calcium into my 7 gallon top off container. Sort of gauge it by when the last water change was as to what I dump in. I've had the tank running for a few years now and recall when I first started the alk being very high. I think that was probably my use of treated tap water from Kalamalka lake (high in calcium & alk) and the fact that I had little in the way of coral using those elements up. Since switching to RODI water years ago, alk is chronically low, no matter what I dose in my haphazard way. I use IO salt & when I test a newly mixed batch the alk is good. A few days after water change, tank tests low again & I'll dump some baked Arm & Hammer into the top off container. Once in a while I'll fire some Epsom Salt into the top off water as well.
Long story short, I tend not to chase numbers as much as I used to in the past. I see my tank every day, stuff looks good, calcifying coral like hammer & especially monti cap are growing like the dickens, there's an abundance of coralline all over the rockwork, back glass. I mostly rely on large water changes every 21 days, give or take, to keep the water chemistry levels suitable for the livestock.
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