Just monitoring for sps dom would mean adding a trident if you are looking for automated monitoring of Alk, ca and mg. I don’t mean any offense but your getting into spending a lot of cheddar here. Do you have a budget or is the sky the limit? On a 15 gallon tank water changes alone can get you by for awhile and dosing something like all for reef which can be calculated off of alkalinity is pretty common so a trident monitoring Alk, ca, and mg isn’t really a must have. Just monitoring salinity adds a couple hundred bucks now as most packages omit that probe now. This really depends on what exactly you want to monitor.
Do you think I would even need it ? I plan on changing out two cups of saltwater each day for fresh water instead of doing weekly water changes. If the monitoring isn’t necessary or you think it wouldn’t make any difference then i probably won’t get it.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely useful. A necessity, especially on a small tank, absolutely not. You can be very successful with or without, just as you can have failures with or without. My opinion is on a small tank, with some basic quality test equipment, a logbook or similar, and water changes you have a good baseline. If you want a cool doodad to play with and have the means, have fun and enjoy a monitor controller as they can be awesome. Exchanging two cups of tank water for two cups of new saltwater daily is probably just fine to start. It depends on what and how much you feed and filtration. I’m really not the right person to advise anyone on how to setup and run a tank, let alone a pico or nano. I just hate for people to feel that some fancy gear is required or guarantees success.
What's your reasoning behind saving the trident for the larger system buddy? I had so many parameter swings that could have been avoided with regular monitoring of my max nano
If he’s on a tighter budget he may not need to spend that much. Regular water changes go a long way on a small tank. Though buying quality once is something to think about if op is planing to go large soon. He may also be able to get a bundled deal with Apex and Trident. I ran a Plank on my IM 20 so I can’t talk about going frugal
I get that, but in terms of swings between water changes, the monitoring can go a long way to helping mitigate that worry! Plus if the money is spent now then it's not needing to be spent if/when the OP is upgradingIf he’s on a tighter budget he may not need to spend that much. Regular water changes go a long way on a small tank. Though buying quality once is something to think about if op is planing to go large soon. He may also be able to get a bundled deal with Apex and Trident. I ran a Plank on my IM 20 so I can’t talk about going frugal
This is true. No need to spend twice
Could you elaborate on this buddy? Personally, having owned nanos for a while, I think they have possibly more benefit than a bigger system
Sure. For starters, a 10%/every 2 weeks water change will replace all your elements - so there's not really any need for dosing (other than occasionally manually supplementing). Second, those of us who run full Neptune systems still test anyway - and the Trident doesn't test for nitrates and phosphates (so you're not saving on test kits). Third, the Neptune ATK is fairly bulky and not ideally-suited for nano tanks (it's fine with larger tanks). That goes for a lot of the other Neptune gear as well (probes, etc.). Finally, it's very expensive to amortize across such a small system where you're already paying a premium for anything "nano".
I think the replenishment of elements is totally dependent on the volume of corals you're keeping. For me I was dosing the maximum amount of all for reef, Kalkwasser and doing 20% water changes a week to keep my nano stable. I still had fluctuations
