Testing: How much is too much and what toll does it take?

[Mkissane]

Unless i'm trying to dial in my doser, i only test once a week to make sure everything is on the up and up

I fully agree. I test once a week typically. Although I recently move my sump and equipment to a dedicated fish room and changed out the heads on my Apex DOS. Luckily I took a prudent approach and was testing daily. Turned out to be a great thing because the new DOS head was defective and actually not dosing.

 

[living_tribunal]

I have been struggling to keep nutrient levels up, and prevent them from zeroing. I feed my fish three times a day, turned off my skimmer, cut fuge photoperiod to 3 hours, feed corals aminos daily, etc and my phosphates still zero out almost everyday.

I have to spend about an hour a day testing nitrate and phosphate levels in my tanks and dose accordingly. Kind of desperate for a more natural rhythm to keeping measurable nutrient levels.

 

[MichaelClark55]

What I have learned through trial and error is that if you have a lot of coral and or large colonies that are aggressively growing the amount of nutrients taken out of the water is constantly changing. Thus the need for testing frequently, that is if you want to keep the stability that we work so hard to achieve. So I tested almost daily to get my numbers where I wanted them. Now that I am happy with where I am I test the big 3 2x a week. and adjust if needed. Nitrates 1x week only because I do feed heavy. Phosphates hardly ever. I can tell if they are getting to be an issue just by observation. Salinity I check about 2x month. PH I check about 2x week just to make sure my scrubber is doing its job.

 

[Mkissane]

IMO the testing is not the problem - reacting to the test is the problem.

I agree. Reacting or in most cases over reacting to test results causes undesirable effects. I read a post on this forum a while ago that questioned why do people only re-test when they get an unexpected result. What if we test incorrectly and results are within normal ranges but our test was flawed? We might catch that next time we test and wonder what happened. Then the risk of overreaction kicks in.

 

[Snoopy 67]

I test weekly with my water changes.
Saved my but a few times when CA reactor had problems & Alk tanked.

 

[Jeff_H]

Apparently WWC is not afraid of that because they say they run 0 Nitrate and 0 Phosphate tanks in their lighting guide. And Nitrate and Phosphate has confused me since day 1 in this hobby. Ask 100 different reefkeepers what is a good number for those two and I get 100 different answers. I see amazing tanks where they are zeroed out and amazing tanks where they are high.

I didn't know WWC recommended this. I'm no expert by any stretch, but what I do know is every tank is different even if you run the same method on side-by-side tanks. Two possible explanations for their success with zero NO3 and PO4 is that they feed the tank several times a day. This would suggest to me that they truly are not zero No3 or PO4, just very low and difficult to measure with a hobby-grade test kit.

Also, they don't have sand in their tanks (except one or two I think) which would prevent amphidinium from taking hold. If they run UV, this would likely cover any water column variety. My last point is they're a commercial shop with several highly qualified people dedicated to maintaining the systems 24/7/365. I'm just one guy with limited skills that travels for work often.

To each their own, but as a word of caution... You should look at the link below with over 8,000 posts just for the water column variety alone. There is another thread linked there for amphidinium with 800+ posts. The point is, most people seem to develop Dinos by running a very low nutrient system. I was one of them... not anymore. lol

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

I don't know what percentage of folks had luck battling dinos with any of the methods in the old Dino thread but it's obviously a very low percentage, so I'd like refresh folks on the natural alternatives and lay out three areas of info: some of the factors that contribute to a dino outbreak...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[living_tribunal]

I didn't know WWC recommended this. I'm no expert by any stretch, but what I do know is every tank is different even if you run the same method on side-by-side tanks. Two possible explanations for their success with zero NO3 and PO4 is that they feed the tank several times a day. This would suggest to me that they truly are not zero No3 or PO4, just very low and difficult to measure with a hobby-grade test kit.

Also, they don't have sand in their tanks (except one or two I think) which would prevent amphidinium from taking hold. If they run UV, this would likely cover any water column variety. My last point is they're a commercial shop with several highly qualified people dedicated to maintaining the systems 24/7/365. I'm just one guy with limited skills that travels for work often.

To each their own, but as a word of caution... You should look at the link below with over 8,000 posts just for the water column variety alone. There is another thread linked there for amphidinium with 800+ posts. The point is, most people seem to develop Dinos by running a very low nutrient system. I was one of them... not anymore. lol

I certainly think this is an absolutely terrible idea, especially for most of the newer reefers here. Once you've had dino once, you will NEVER let your nutrients zero out again.

I'd rather have bryopsis, bubble algae, aptasia, cyano, everything rather than deal with dinos again. Your biodiversity and corals depend on these nutrients, not just aminos. Aminos are NOT a replacement for nitrates and phosphates.

 

[gameparts]

This is a flawed question. "Testing" in and of itself does not do anything to your aquarium at all other thank remove a cupful of water. What you do based on that testing does. Please restate the question and take a new poll.

 

[Peace River]

This is a flawed question. "Testing" in and of itself does not do anything to your aquarium at all other thank remove a cupful of water. What you do based on that testing does. Please restate the question and take a new poll.

Welcome to R2R and thank you for making your first post! If you are comfortable sharing, I encourage you to add an introduction to the Meet & Greet section of this forum.

 

[JCOLE]

I have a Trident so testing the big three is pretty easy. Still test manually once a week though to compare kits vs the Trident. Before the Trident I tested ALK atleast once a day and Cal, NO3 and PO4 every Saturday. I also test ALK in my new saltwater before water changes incase I need to make some adjustments.

I think it all depends on what you are trying to keep. I love SPS so I am all about stability. Also I dont mind testing and actually enjoy it so it's not bad.

 

[Nate h]

It all just depends on what you are keeping in the tank. But when testing and then trying to make an adjustment on every little result will just result in a headache.

 

[Scott (Mack) McIntosh]

I test weekly, which is when I do a water change. Have have a salt tank in my home since 1975 and the weekly works best for me. Just part of the game.

 

[SMB]

Once a week because it is part of this overgrown science experiment I have in the basement called a Marine aquarium.
Could probably do less for dKh because I have a pH probe and a pH of 8.1 in my tank correlates nicely with my dKh of 9.8.
I do send a sample to Triton a couple of times a year mostly to see that what I'm testing agrees with their results. I did find out my Iodine was 0 which is curious since I do weekly WCs.

 

[SDJustin]

Once a week because it is part of this overgrown science experiment I have in the basement called a Marine aquarium.
Could probably do less for dKh because I have a pH probe and a pH of 8.1 in my tank correlates nicely with my dKh of 9.8.
I do send a sample to Triton a couple of times a year mostly to see that what I'm testing agrees with their results. I did find out my Iodine was 0 which is curious since I do weekly WCs.

I don't trust Triton's Iodine results. ATI and Fauna Marin found Iodine where Triton did not. More details in this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/german-icp-water-analysis-comparison.663079/

 

[Dan_P]

This is a flawed question. "Testing" in and of itself does not do anything to your aquarium at all other thank remove a cupful of water. What you do based on that testing does. Please restate the question and take a new poll.

I agree. Tne question could have been tweaked a bit. It is too general and leading. Too much of anything is by definition not optimal. Coming up with entertaining and useful questions is tough.

 

[Cheche]

I’m with the ppl who test to find out how much cal/mag/alk. My tank consumed so I can dose the right amount.. the problem is I’m always adding new frags so I see my self testing tooooo much lol . But other then looking at my fish tank testing is one of the stuff the keep me from moving the rocks or change coral location.. in other words it keep my hands out of my fish tank and keep me entertained..

 

[Jon Fishman]

Good thing I don’t test

 

[Reef.]

I plan on doing a lot of testing on my tank I’m in the process of setting up.
Just did my first test, it was ammonia, as I’m cycling my rock ready to go in the tank.

couple of questions though, how do you clean the test equipment after use and as my tank is only 14g, would a lot of tests not drop the salinity of the tank?

 

[amazongb]

I used to hate testing. Then I convinced myself that the testing results are interesting. Test everything once a week, and alk three to four times a week. The data is interesting, and my tank is much healthier knowing what's going on that I can't see.. That said, I do like the idea automated testing..

 

[Haberdasher]

I used to test a lot and worry about levels a lot. Not any more. After a while you develop a sense for how the tank runs, how fast it consumes alk/calk, and when it needs something. I do water changes frequently enough and supplement 2 part every once in a while to keep inhabitants happy.