Do I Have to Measure Anything More Than Alkalinity and Salinity?

[reddogf5]

I was thinking about the bare minimum to keep a tank healthy, and boiled it down to measuring alkalinity and salinity, keeping salinity stable, and alkalinity correct with a balanced additive (alk/Ca/Mg), with regular water changes. Not for an SPS tank with huge consumption, but a softy/LPS tank with fish.

So what else do you think NEEDS to be tested, and why?

 

[brandon429]

I run sps and lps very long term in pico reefs. a very very high coral per gallon ratio

testing only temp and salinity, don't even care about alk because whatever salt mix my lfs uses for their premade mixes, Im changing water out weekly ish after a good strong feeding run just before, and no matter the brand of salt they use their alk is good enough to make that interval even if its a low alk brand.

in my opinion ive made up for tedious testing by keeping up water changes to avoid bottoming out things, and very high quality feed and export routine makes for no algae battles. so i'd simplify your testing even further, depending on your access to water changes/willingness to run them.

 

[TheDragonsReef]

I would add phosphate to that list of must test regularly. Even softies and lps dont like very high phosphates

 

[Jekyl]

It's not as simple as 1 or 2 measurements. PH, magnesium, calcium, all affect alkalinity. You will also need to measure phosphate and nitrate. Water changes won't do enough in an established system.

 

[Jekyl]

Here's a good breakdown of basics of water chemistry

 

[arking_mark]

I was thinking about the bare minimum to keep a tank healthy, and boiled it down to measuring alkalinity and salinity, keeping salinity stable, and alkalinity correct with a balanced additive (alk/Ca/Mg), with regular water changes. Not for an SPS tank with huge consumption, but a softy/LPS tank with fish.

So what else do you think NEEDS to be tested, and why?

If you can do large frequent water changers, you could just do salinity and temp.

 

[Jekyl]

If you can do large frequent water changers, you could just do salinity and temp.

That would lead to parameters swings. Idea is to create a stable system.

 

[tsouth]

I would encourage you to continue testing Phosphates, Calcium, and Nitrates, in that order of priority - especially if you are dosing.

Phosphates will teach you how to be consistent with feeding habits
Calcium may not be in line with Alk, and your rate of consumption may be higher than expected.
Nitrates just to ensure they don't bottom out and dino's become an issue

 

[arking_mark]

That would lead to parameters swings. Idea is to create a stable system.

I disagree. Weekly 50% water changes would keep your tank pretty stable.

 

[Jekyl]

Doing in my case 45 gallon water changes weekly is far more costly than testing and dosing. I would lose 3dkh of alkalinity in a week. Leading to a large parameter swing with the change.

 

[brandon429]

weekly water changes alone run 16 year systems

and many others, there are other picos out to 7 and 8 years now with about four grand of corals inside, don't think we're short changing quality. its fish we get robbed of keeping not corals

 

[brandon429]

we're also cheating in that one or two gallons resets our entire chemistry palette back to good, in 5 mins, and that scaling isn't possible or at least half as easy for large tankers. so apparently gallons of volume determines what you have to test for
because nano reefers and pico reefers don't need to know anything other than temp and salinity, any brand of salt mixes up in an o.k. range, all variances accepted. bi weekly water changes are a bit far out on the lower alk mix brands we've seen when testing was done...weekly is best. it'll cover all known brands of salt mix variance in major params, without dosing. we use this even today on reefs up to 32 g biocubes etc.

what it means is the most coral you can pack in a pico reef, well fed and growing, will still pull params out of the water at an o.k. pace for most salt brands if you change it weekly, a high % of tank water. and feed well just before the water change, not after / export timing trick.

but as soon as you go large tanks, to keep the same corals we do, its testing nine params minimum. gallonage sets your test params.

 

[arking_mark]

Doing in my case 45 gallon water changes weekly is far more costly than testing and dosing. I would lose 3dkh of alkalinity in a week. Leading to a large parameter swing with the change.

I stand corrected.

 

[reddogf5]

It's not as simple as 1 or 2 measurements. PH, magnesium, calcium, all affect alkalinity. You will also need to measure phosphate and nitrate. Water changes won't do enough in an established system.

pH is what it is, there is not much that can be done to change it other than CO2 scrub. Mg and Ca will be essentially constant if alkalinity is maintained with balanced additives. Nitrification reduces pH by creating hydrogen ions, and consumes alk, but if nitrates are not ever increasing, neither is the alk consumption, unless it is all removed through water changes.
So I still see the ability to keep alk, Mg, and Ca constant by monitoring and maintaining alk with balanced additives.
I am beginning to doubt the value of phosphate and nitrate measurements. if the tank is properly fed, and has sufficient export mechanisms in place, do those measurements matter? And if the feeding or export is off, will one need a test to tell?
Maybe I will set up a tank to find out.

 

[reddogf5]

Also, thanks for the video. I was unaware of carbon dosing creating bacterioplankton to feed corals. that is pretty cool.

 

[mdb_talon]

I disagree. Weekly 50% water changes would keep your tank pretty stable.

It may work fine in some tanks. Without dosing i drop a little less than 2dkh a day in my main tank(i know many people drop a lot more) Thats a theoretical ~13 dkh drop in a week. Of course in reality once it gets below 5 or 6 dkh the coral growth slows so much it is using much less(which i see as a bad thing). Even then though it does not actually reset without a huge swing.

Example i keep my dkh at 10. If it drops to 5 in a week and i do a 50% change with 10dkh it is now 7.5. I would have to dose my saltmix in that scenario to even get to the 15dkh needed to actually get the dkh of tank back to 10. 5 dkh (and related ph change) all at once is a huge swing.

Then as others have mentioned once you get midsize to large tanks it quickly becomes cost prohibitive doing 50% changes weekly.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Tempature.

 

[reddogf5]

Tempature.

Yes, I was thinking more of chemical tests, but temperature absolutely needs to be measured and controlled.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I was thinking about the bare minimum to keep a tank healthy, and boiled it down to measuring alkalinity and salinity, keeping salinity stable, and alkalinity correct with a balanced additive (alk/Ca/Mg), with regular water changes. Not for an SPS tank with huge consumption, but a softy/LPS tank with fish.

So what else do you think NEEDS to be tested, and why?

That's a bare minimum that can often work out, IMO. Well, perhaps temperature too.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

pH is what it is, there is not much that can be done to change it other than CO2 scrub.

Fresh air in the room, outside air to a skimmer, high pH additives when supplementing alkalinity are all good choices.