Post your parameters - BE HONEST THREAD

[newbie2014]

From yesterday;

- Temp: 79-80, Finnex titanium.
- pH: don't know. Never tested it, ever.
- Alk: 8.45, Salifert. Usually drops 0.7 aday.
- Ca: 435, Salifert. Never budges from day to day.
- Mg: 1500.
- Phos: 0.04ppm (about 6 months ago), Hanna UL.
- NO3: don't know. Never tested it, ever.
- NH4: ditto.

Softies/LPS/anemone sumpless tank.

 

[Crustaceon]

Temp 79
Sg 1.026
Dkh 8.5
Cal 440
Mg 1430
No3 10ppm
Po4 (don’t know, don’t care)

 

[Iván Olalla]

PO4 0.01 — Hanna ULR- feeding more and trying to raise it a little bit
NO3 2-3 — API indetectable and Salifert -feeding more and adding potasium nitrate
pH 8.1 night 8.4 day — i have kalk in the ATO
Alk 8.4/8.6 — dose kh every 2 hours, my tank consumes 2.1 dkh daily
Ca 411 — Hanna
Mg 1280 — Salifert

 

[madweazl]

Salinity

Alkalinity

Calcium

Magnesium

Phosphate

Nitrate

I pay zero attention to single results and wont make changes unless a trend emerges (provided something isn't at a lethal level which hasn't happened in this tank)

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Temp 79
Sg 1.026
Dkh 8.5
Cal 440
Mg 1430
No3 10ppm
Po4 (don’t know, don’t care)

I thought about never needing to know phosphates, in 13 years of keeping reefs I hadn't had an issue until keeping sps. I don't know if it coincides with the sps and no detectable phosphates for them dying?

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Does anyone have a good way of raising phosphates?

 

[ScottR]

PO4 0.01 — Hanna ULR- feeding more and trying to raise it a little bit
NO3 2-3 — API indetectable and Salifert -feeding more and adding potasium nitrate
pH 8.1 night 8.4 day — i have kalk in the ATO
Alk 8.4/8.6 — dose kh every 2 hours, my tank consumes 2.1 dkh daily
Ca 411 — Hanna
Mg 1280 — Salifert

Hey Iván! How’s that pico? Any recent pictures?

 

[Sweetaz]

Alk 8.6 dkh
pH 8.3
Temp 78
SG 1.026
I don’t test for anything else currently.

 

[Iván Olalla]

Hey Iván! How’s that pico? Any recent pictures?

Some pics, but haven´t uploaded the new ones. It´s doing ok! My nutrients kind of fell, so i´m feeding corals every other day and dosing potassium nitrate, i´m currently cycling the frag tank in order to have more real estate and i´ve been toying with the idea of fragging everything in the pico reef and start an acro bonsai aquaescape...lol!

 

[phlibbyreefer]

ALK - 9.3
CALCIUM - 475 (too high, like to have it down about 435)
Nitrate - undetectable (redsea nitrate test)
Phosphate - 0.02
Temp - 76.6 - 78.6

 

[Sailfinguy21]

Since i dont think they matter too much i dont check mine ceot calc and alk.. never check my mag.

Anyway.. i just checked everything..

My nitrates are 15 to 20
Phosphates are .50
Magnesium is 1450
Calcium 420
Alk 9
Ph. 8.3
Temps 78f

The two i check calc and alk i tty to keep at 8-9 and cslcium above 380.

I habe 44 diff corals including 5 acroporas. And 8 types of monitporas.. Bubble corals.. torch.. frogspawn and the like.. no issues with anyone.

In fact i was given a 100% white bleached acropora bout 2weeks ago.. and here is what it looks like today.. the last 3 days its getting greener and greener..

 

[Crustaceon]

I thought about never needing to know phosphates, in 13 years of keeping reefs I hadn't had an issue until keeping sps. I don't know if it coincides with the sps and no detectable phosphates for them dying?

When I kept Sps, I ran an ats and later just chaeto. I was honestly more concerned with keeping nitrates in the tank and always assumed phosphates were extremely low as long as the algae in the sump was growing and both are consumed in ratio to each other. One thing that I noticed between keeping lps & softies vs. sps is the extreme sensitivity of sps to alkalinity changes. I went through the same teething issues as many people keeping sps and only started having success after reducing water change amounts and frequency. Alk swings are the #1 killer of sps with extremely low No3/Po4 in second place.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

When I kept Sps, I ran an ats and later just chaeto. I was honestly more concerned with keeping nitrates in the tank and always assumed phosphates were extremely low as long as the algae in the sump was growing and both are consumed in ratio to each other. One thing that I noticed between keeping lps & softies vs. sps is the extreme sensitivity of sps to alkalinity changes. I went through the same teething issues as many people keeping sps and only started having success after reducing water change amounts and frequency. Alk swings are the #1 killer of sps with extremely low No3/Po4 in second place.

I had been doing very minimal water changes and removed my skimmer as it had broken anyway, with the skimmer removed the sps looked excellent and was growing like mad and I had to frag it regularly which from selling them I bought another tank. I even brought a doser to keep the alk stable as it was using 1.5 dkh per day and the doser kept it level at 7.7 then after about 6 months of great growth, the alk consumption dropped and growth stopped then colours went. I then got cyano then got rid of that and now a little dino, all sps are gone and my lps just look meh.

 

[fourdrachma]

Ph is 8.1
Salinity 1.026
Alk. 10.5
Calc 530
Mag 1100

 

[Oliver d]

I dont chase after numbers I let the tank be, change 15% water with NSW each week.I only test when something doesnt look right.Tank mostly softies and 5 clams witch grow like crazy.
Last Test 5/6/19
Alk 9.6
ph 8 day time 7.8 night time
Ca 400 range
Mg above 1500
No3 and Po4 not tested

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Hahaha, this is going to be fun. I'll post up mine, and the last time I actually checked them with a FTS of my tank from last night.

NO3 0ppm (Jan 24 2019)
PO4 0.03ppm (Jan 24 2019)
pH 8.0 (Aug 8 2018)
Ca 425 (Jan 24 2019)
Alk 7.8 (Jun 13 2019)
Mg 1200 (Nov 6 2018)
SG 1.026 (Nov 6 2018)
Temp ? (No idea set to 78)

 

[CivicS14]

Alk 6.6-7.2- test weekly
Phosphates .01-.03 - test monthly
Calc - 410-420 test monthly
Ph - no clue, never tested before
Nitrates - 5-25ppm test monthly

Tank started cycle in August 2018, first coral frags started in October 2018

Here is current tank

 

[KTTX]

Here are mine:

PO4 0.06
NO3 3
pH 7.7 - 8.1
Alk 8
Ca 435
Mg 1330

 

[Crustaceon]

I had been doing very minimal water changes and removed my skimmer as it had broken anyway, with the skimmer removed the sps looked excellent and was growing like mad and I had to frag it regularly which from selling them I bought another tank. I even brought a doser to keep the alk stable as it was using 1.5 dkh per day and the doser kept it level at 7.7 then after about 6 months of great growth, the alk consumption dropped and growth stopped then colours went. I then got cyano then got rid of that and now a little dino, all sps are gone and my lps just look meh.

That sounds exactly like what happened when my nitrates pegged to zero. Everything looked especially colorful one day, went pastel a few days later and I started getting dinos & cyano immediately after. I checked my nitrates with salifert test and the vial was as clear as vodka, eeek. I was able to save most of my corals by feeding everything in the tank partially chopped up mysis for the following week and turning off my ats & skimmer. I had the same issue later with chaeto and swore to never keep more than a baseball sized ball of it per 100 gallons again. Dealing with too much nitrates is easy. Dealing with too little nitrates is hard and simply dosing nitrates from a bottle has always caused a slew of additional issues in my experience.

 

[120reefkeeper]

Tank #1

Salinity 1.025
Ph 8.2- 8.45
Alk - 8.0dkh
Cal - 417ppm
Po4- .037ppm
N03- 2ppm
Mag - 1380ppm

Tank #2

Salinity 1.025
Ph 8.1-8.35
Alk - 8.0dkh
Cal - 410ppm
Po4- .047ppm
No3 1 ppm
Mag 1350ppm

Tank #3

Salinity 1.025
Ph 8.2- 8.50
Alk 8.5 dkh
Cal 423ppm
Po4 - .052ppm
No3- 3ppm
Mag - 1350ppm