This feels like an incredibly dumb question and one that I have held back on asking, but I feel like I should get some better understanding here.
People often talk about the importance of waiting until a tank is stable to take on harder to keep coral in particular, and understandably so. But I'm not sure I really understand how to know when things are "stable," per se. My Apex tends to keep the Ca, Mg, and Alk in an acceptable range based on the dynamic dosing, but from the way more experienced reefers talk about it, it seems like stability has more involved than that? Is it more of a question of nitrate and phosphate levels? Coraline growth? Success with more challenging corals as a sign of it? What, technically, is "stability," and what's the best way to tell? What can be done as reefers to help get a tank to be more stable?
Hopefully this at least kind of makes sense. I am hoping to take the plunge into Tridacna clams soon, once I finish slowly increasing my PAR, but all the advice I've heard always comes back to stability, so I'm trying to get a better sense of what that looks like and what I can do so I don't rush anything.
Any rules of thumb to determine when a tank is stable, advice to help facilitate the tank becoming more stable, etc are much appreciated. Thanks all!
People often talk about the importance of waiting until a tank is stable to take on harder to keep coral in particular, and understandably so. But I'm not sure I really understand how to know when things are "stable," per se. My Apex tends to keep the Ca, Mg, and Alk in an acceptable range based on the dynamic dosing, but from the way more experienced reefers talk about it, it seems like stability has more involved than that? Is it more of a question of nitrate and phosphate levels? Coraline growth? Success with more challenging corals as a sign of it? What, technically, is "stability," and what's the best way to tell? What can be done as reefers to help get a tank to be more stable?
Hopefully this at least kind of makes sense. I am hoping to take the plunge into Tridacna clams soon, once I finish slowly increasing my PAR, but all the advice I've heard always comes back to stability, so I'm trying to get a better sense of what that looks like and what I can do so I don't rush anything.
Any rules of thumb to determine when a tank is stable, advice to help facilitate the tank becoming more stable, etc are much appreciated. Thanks all!