Chasing Numbers

[Cscultho]

I'm not new to reefing but compared to many i am a noobie. I've been out of the hobby for a couple years due to moving around and now I've setup a new tank, finally, and have been running for about 5 months now.

After surfing several forums it seems to me the biggest challenge every reefer seems to have is getting the water parameter zeroed-in, whatever those parameters are. Everyone has an opinions on the optimum number but are we getting lost in the chemistry of the water and losing site of the fun of the hobby? You tweak one parameter and another parameter goes out of wack. You try correcting this and another parameter suffers and so on. Finally in the end we end up creating crazy algae blooms and the inhabitants ultimately suffer or die.

I've found myself doing just this and it can become a dang nightmare trying to find the true balance in the system.

Does anybody else share my same frustration with chasing the NUMBERS and not enjoying the tank?

thanks for letting me vent!

 

[tdileo]

Stop chasing numbers and enjoy the tank. If your corals look good and are growing don't change anything about your schedule. Just keep it stable and enjoy the beautiful colors and your slice of the ocean sitting in front of you. After all, whats the point of working for a beautiful thing thats supposed to be relaxing and peaceful when all it does is cause you stress?
[emoji4]

 

[PatW]

Oceans are big. The main things are stability and nutrient control. Most parameters can work well within a certain range. Select some values and keep them there.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Everyone has an opinions on the optimum number but are we getting lost in the chemistry of the water and losing site of the fun of the hobby?

At the end of the day, what our animals require more than anything else is stability. We've found that hard and soft corals thrive in a wide range of different parameter values. The numbers themselves are not as important as keeping the numbers stable. If you keep soft corals, you might be able to achieve sufficient stability only changing water once a week. For SPS dominated tanks, there's little chance that they could thrive without special attention being paid to the water chemistry. Some more sensitive species of hard corals can't survive trivial things such as small acute changes in alkalinity.

I suppose at the end of the day the answer to your question depends on both how much effort you want to put in your tank and what sort of inhabitants you want to keep. For some people whose idea of fun is having a tank full of delicate and colorful SPS corals, the hobby is in fact impossible without "chasing numbers" and maintaining sufficient stability. If you want to have a tank full of hardy specimens that are tolerant of changes in water chemistry and that is your idea of fun, then you likely needn't "chase" any numbers. Water changes will likely be sufficient to maintain a stable enough environment for your animals. Nobody is going to force you to chase any numbers. You're free to do so only when necessary (there's a problem in the tank), or if you see a potential benefit in your tank from additional stability.

I will say that whether you choose to dose your tank to maintain specific values of anything or not, I don't think there's any reason to not know your tank's water chemistry. I always advocate that reefers have at least alkalinity, calcium and magnesium test kits on hand, and to test these values weekly. Salifert test kits are about $15 a piece, and testing all three of those parameters takes me less than 15 minutes. As a hobby we are willing to pay considerably large sums of money for designer fish and limited release coral fragments, yet we can't be bothered to buy test kits a few times a year and spend 10 minutes of our week testing water. Just doesn't make sense to me. But, to each his own.