What is "stable"

[jordanrb]

You always see people say stable numbers but ive never seen anyone actually describe what they think is considered stable.

What is actually considered stable in terms of perameters? Do people think calcium and magnesium fluctuating 10, 20 or even 50ppm is bad? How consistent does alk numbers need to be?

 

[Reefer Matt]

“Stable” is within tolerance of your livestock. It may take a few years to learn what deviations are acceptable, it’s not the same for every tank. To be conservative, numbers are suggested as a starting point.

 

[jordanrb]

“Stable” is within tolerance of your livestock. It may take a few years to learn what deviations are acceptable, it’s not the same for every tank. To be conservative, numbers are suggested as a starting point.

Im more wondering in terms of a general guideline. Is there not a maximim fluctuation range in when livestock starts to notice the change or when it actualy can start to stress them out? When my calcium drops 20ppm I dont notice a difference in my tank but I also dont want to assume every fish and coral is fine with it.

 

[mmorrison55]

Besides stable salt and temp for the fish, the big three of dkh, ca, and mg are mostly for corals. What levels you keep them at depends a lot on what type of corals you are planning to keep.

Vic at world wide corals likes to shoot for the below for SPS dominant tanks.

Sal 1.025-1.026

Calcium 450-500

Magnesium 1400-1500

Nitrates 10-20

Phosphate <.08

Alkalinity 7-11 (8-9 ideal)


However, if You ask 10 people, you will likely get 10 different answers as to what is ideal for them.

 

[mmorrison55]

As for fluctuations, just have to monitor your parameters over a period of time to figure out the consumption rate, then dose accordingly to keep the parameter at the levels you are shooting for.

 

[jordanrb]

Yeah im trying to see if not dosing my smaller 20g tank and letting the fluctuations go between weekly waterchange wont cause too much stress on the livestock.

 

[Bucrob]

Yeah im trying to see if not dosing my smaller 20g tank and letting the fluctuations go between weekly waterchange wont cause too much stress on the livestock.

With smaller tanks its really hard to control the alk fluctuation, personally my 15g that has no lps or sps only softies can fluctuate from 9.4 to 5.6 within a week so it may be hard to find "stability" in that small tank depending on what you want

 

[dvgyfresh]

For me stable is things being within a nice range
Alk +- 1 dkh on desired range
Ph +- .2 of desired range
Nitrate less worrisome so 10-30 ppm
Phosphate .08 to .2ppm is fine for me

I don’t bother testing anything else as I dose AFR to maintain alkalinity from 8.8 - 9.8 dkh

 

[Gumbies R Us]

My general rule of thumb is to follow a base tolerance level similar to what above people said. Then not let the level fluctuate too much as this can cause more harm than good for livestock

 

[Paul B]

Stable is when your tank is running for many years, no problems, no diseases, nothing dying except from old age and you rarely, if ever have to test anything.

That is my opinion of course, but I do consider my tank to be stable.

 

[jordanrb]

With smaller tanks its really hard to control the alk fluctuation, personally my 15g that has no lps or sps only softies can fluctuate from 9.4 to 5.6 within a week so it may be hard to find "stability" in that small tank depending on what you want

Thats really interesting. Do you find that drastic of a change in alkalinity bothers anything?

 

[jordanrb]

Stable is when your tank is running for many years, no problems, no diseases, nothing dying except from old age and you rarely, if ever have to test anything.

That is my opinion of course, but I do consider my tank to be stable.

Well that is end goals for sure. Currently since I am still adding I need to test for swings. My alk and calcium are dropping around 50ppm per week between water changes with no dosing.

 

[exnisstech]

I use AFR and ESV 2 part (separate tanks) Alk 8-9 dkH with 8.5 being my actual target. Salinty 1.025. I never have to adjust the tank salinty. Calcium around 425 though I rarely test it. Mag I have no idea. pH? Meh whatever tanks run at tho I do have an outside line to the skimmer on my acro tank. N and P are different with each tank. One has N 25-40 and P 0.3-0.9+ others at or near zero. I'll dose to raiae N and P when I see 0. I don't worry much about the higher levels since the tank looks fine.

 

[hoffmeyerz]

Stable is a very subjective term. I feel time is the biggest factor in reaching stability, however, I won't place an exact timeframe as every tank and condition is different.
These living ecosystems will eventually find balance and settle into a harmony. This if course has a million factors which are different for every tank. Some tanks will find a balance early and others take longer.
That balance will be when the tank settles in and stays within a fairly constant range of parameters and nothing changes in the tank, no unexplained death, algae or dino outbreak, etc. Now any outside change to this balance could throw it all off until that change is found and adjusted until balance and stability is found again. The longer a tank stays in balance the better the chance it will correct itself with minor changes, in other words stable!

 

[bushdoc]

Can’t give precise values, but some parameters ( Temp, Sal,Alk) need to be kept in narrower range than others like Ca or Nitrates. Hence systems of daily testing alkalinity and adjusting it on the fly.

 

[X-37B]

Stability is choosing the levels you want to run and focus on keeping them in range.
Not really much more to it than that.

I have systems from 150g's to 13g's and they are all kept in range using different methods.

My 13 which is as simple as you can get.
Live rock, sand, heater, filter, flow, and custom ato, lol.

Currently dosing 5ml of esv 2 part daily by hand, all other systems are on kamoers.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What is actually considered stable in terms of perameters? Do people think calcium and magnesium fluctuating 10, 20 or even 50ppm is bad? How consistent does alk numbers need to be?

Magnesium will never fluctuate more than 2 ppm in a day unless the salinity changes. What you likely observe is test error, which for magnesium is so common that I neither do it nor recommend it.

Calcium does not need to be particularly stable and again, test error is more likely than real instability unless your demand is high and you wait multiple days between dosing what is needed.

Alk stability is often suggested to be 0.5 dKH per day or less, but one method promoted by Fauna Marin specifically recommends once a day dosing and seems to work fine.

 

[Rocks reef]

Stable is when your tank is running for many years, no problems, no diseases, nothing dying except from old age and you rarely, if ever have to test anything.

That is my opinion of course, but I do consider my tank to be stable.

And you have definitely set the standard Paul

 

[Paul B]

And you have definitely set the standard Paul

I'm old.

I am not sure why the vast majority of tanks are new. What happened to the tanks that were started 10, 20 or 40 years ago?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm old.

I am not sure why the vast majority of tanks are new. What happened to the tanks that were started 10, 20 or 40 years ago?

I can answer that exactly for one of them.

I started mine more than 30 years ago. I stopped it after 20 years due largely to electricity costs going through the roof.

I restarted it last year due in part to more electrically efficient equipment.