Hi everyone,
My tank has completed Nitrogen-cycling. This took a week, during which time, I maintained salinity at 20 ppt, temp at 82-83 degree F and stress-tested multiple times by pushing Ammonia to Toxic levels and allowing the bacteria to bring it down to Safe. At my tank's current state, free Ammonia is hardly noticed even immedieately after ammonia-doses.
As such, I was on the lookout for some authorative info on water parameters for coral propagation. During this search I came across a government-funded research on reef aquaria by National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from March 2013 - sponsored by the Coral Disease Health Consortium (paper attached).
Following are the parameters per this research. Do you agree - generally?
Thanks and happy reefing!
- Gogol
My tank has completed Nitrogen-cycling. This took a week, during which time, I maintained salinity at 20 ppt, temp at 82-83 degree F and stress-tested multiple times by pushing Ammonia to Toxic levels and allowing the bacteria to bring it down to Safe. At my tank's current state, free Ammonia is hardly noticed even immedieately after ammonia-doses.
As such, I was on the lookout for some authorative info on water parameters for coral propagation. During this search I came across a government-funded research on reef aquaria by National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from March 2013 - sponsored by the Coral Disease Health Consortium (paper attached).
Following are the parameters per this research. Do you agree - generally?
- Temperature: 76 to 82.5 deg F
- Salinity: 35 ppt
- pH: 8.1 to 8.3
- Alkalinity: 8 - 10 KH
- Calcium: 380 - 450 ppm
- Magnesium 1250 - 1350 ppm
- Ammonia (total) < 0.1 ppm
- Nitrite < 0.2 ppm
- Nitrate < 0.2 ppm
- Phosphate < 0.03 ppm
Thanks and happy reefing!
- Gogol