Can someone please list in order the key elements to keep soft corals beyond
Ph
Nitrite
Nitrate
Phosphate
Salinity
Ammonia
..
Such things as Alkalinity, Magnesium, Calcium.
Trying to work out what I should focus for dosing in my tank
With any coral, you should strive for stability over specific numbers. The good news is soft corals are typically much more forgiving than other types of coral, so your window of acceptable ranges widens considerably.
PH - I personally would not aim for a certain PH, if it's between 7.8-8.3 great if not, it probably won't make any difference to soft coral and you could do more damage trying to achieve a specific number.
Nitrite - Should always be 0
Nitrate - Soft coral can tolerate much higher nitrate than some other coral. I would aim for less than 20 (but above 0) for soft coral.
Phosphate - Like with nitrate, they can tolerate higher numbers, but I would aim for around .1 or less, but still above 0
Salinity - I prefer to run my tanks at 1.026, but 1.025 is fine as well.
Ammonia - Should always be 0
Weekly water changes may be enough to keep your alk, ca, and mg in check, but may need to dose 2 part if you have a lot of coralline growth.
Alkalinity - I like to keep mine between 8.0-11.0 for soft coral. Stability is much more important than a specific number.
Calcium - Anywhere between 400-500 should be fine, even lower would probably be fine.
Magnesium - I like to keep mine around 1440, but again, with a decent water change schedule, you shouldn't ever have to worry about it.
I personally would recommend a decent water change schedule with a high-quality salt. That should prevent you from having to dose for a while.
