Reef parameter testing ? Whats the minimal or whats over the top

Mrreefercanada · Feb 15, 2020

This is something I was thinking about last night and think it can spark a good discussion on water testing for the new and experienced of this hobby.

What in your opinion is the bare minimum testing needed for a mixed reef? Frequency? And backup your reasoning for your opinion ?

What do you think is way over the too and may not be necessarily required?

Crabs McJones · Feb 15, 2020

I think in the beginning testing frequently is a must. Daily to every couple of days. Once you get in the groove and know where your levels hover you can move to weekly testing. I will generally test on sunday when i'm doing all my tank maintenance. And i'll only test alk and calcium. Once a month i'll test nitrate and phosphate, but with my refugium those numbers are always low no undetectable.

Mrreefercanada · Feb 15, 2020

Crabs McJones said:
I think in the beginning testing frequently is a must. Daily to every couple of days. Once you get in the groove and know where your levels hover you can move to weekly testing. I will generally test on sunday when i'm doing all my tank maintenance. And i'll only test alk and calcium. Once a month i'll test nitrate and phosphate, but with my refugium those numbers are always low no undetectable.

So only alk and cal once a week interesting! Then nitrate and phos! Seems like you have your system figured out! Do You think because of your refuge testing is minimal?

Crabs McJones · Feb 15, 2020

Mrreefercanada said:
So only alk and cal once a week interesting! Then nitrate and phos! Seems like you have your system figured out! Do You think because of your refuge testing is minimal?

The fuge definitely helps when it comes to nitrate and phosphate, I almost never get a detectable amount (except for a small incident a couple months ago due to a very very dirty sandbed that is now gone) . Alk and Calcium I auto dose using a DOS, so basically I test once a week to see if I need to adjust my dosing amounts.

W1ngz · Feb 15, 2020

It really depends on the circumstances. If all is well and things are happy, weekly is fine. If you're tracking a problem maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Just soft corals and a few simple LPS, then go longer.

Monthly, not so much. That's a long time, and if you're just going to assume everything is fine, and I hope it is, That's ok, until it's not. Youll catch problems in test trends before your favourite corals get angry.

Maybe for someone really in tune with every piece they have they could get away with it, but a lot of times if a coral is going to go south on you it will be from one day to the next, because it's been stressed for quite a while.

Quietman · Feb 15, 2020

So this got me wondering if I could come up with a decision matrix for determining testing frequency. Slow Saturday here. I'll probably describe this more in my build thread, but here's something I came up with to help determine each persons test frequency based on their tolerance for risk, test equipment, design, etc.

Now if I can just figure out how to post a spreadsheet (probably need to do a dropbox for this).

I added my "Actual" last after figuring out the individual ratings. Found it interesting this held up more or less to my actual, with the exception of pH - normally that would be weekly for me but since I have Apex I monitor it continuously. I also don't monitor Alk quite as frequently as bi-weekly (meaning twice a week).

I will also increase frequency based on changing dosing or adding livestock/food which I suppose would be changing "normal variance".

Anyhow, I thought it an interesting exercise.

	Impact	Normal Variance	Indicator	Potential Failure	Ease of Test	Sum of Ratings	Frequency Recommended	Actual Frequency
Properties
Temp	3	1	3	3	3	13	Daily or Continuously	Continuously
pH	2	2	2	1	3	10	Bi-Weekly	Continuously
ORP	2	3	3	2	3	13	Daily or Continuously	Continuously
Salinity	3	1	1	2	2	9	Weekly	Weekly
Nutrients
NO3	2	2	1	2	1	8	Weekly	Weekly
PO4	2	2	1	2	1	8	Weekly	Weekly
Minerals
Alk	2	1	3	2	2	10	Bi-Weekly	Bi-Weekly
Ca	1	1	2	2	1	7	Weekly	Weekly
Mg	1	1	1	1	1	5	Monthly	Monthly

Rating Definition	Impact	Normal Variance	Indicator	Potential Failure	Ease of Test		Total Rating and Corresponding Test Frequency Recommendation
3	Negative and severe impact in hours	Highly variable in <24 hours with control	Indicates imminent loss of livestock	High risk of failure of direct control	Automatic Testing		12	Daily or Continuously
2	Moderate impact over days	Moderate fluctuation with normal usage or build up rate	Indicates potential loss of livestock	Moderate risk or control or indirect response failure	Instrument; Simple test; <2 minute result		10	Bi-Weekly
1	Little to no noticeable impact over days	Low usage or build up rate	Indicates less than optimum health	Low risk of control or indirect response failure	No Instrument;Complex test; >2 minute result		7	Weekly

PatW · Feb 15, 2020

It depends on the system. After testing for awhile, you should get an idea of what needs testing and how often. I have an SPS dominant tank.

I test Mg once in awhile and it never varies much.

I test salinity daily. It usually does not vary but it takes virtually no time to test so why not?

I test Ca a couple of times per week. I dose the same amount as ALK but sometimes I forget.

ALK. I have dosers dosing twice daily. I test it daily and add what is needed to keep it in line. My system is rather high demand. And SPS corals really like this to be pretty constant.

Phosphate I run it at .03 ppm. I measure daily. I run a chaeto refugium. So I dose it to maintain it. It kind of bounces around.

Nitrate. I keep it between 1 and 2 ppm. I measure daily but it stays pretty constant.

Temp. I check it most days but the controller maintains it pretty well.

Indytraveler83 · Feb 15, 2020

I think it really depends on your system and your parameters. My system is newly upgraded so I'm testing everything every few days to figure it out. But my old system:

Mag and calc stayed very high with regular water changes. Only tested irregularly.

Ammonia, nitrite, ph- never tested after cycle.

Nitrate and phosphate- tested every week or so, because rising phosphate determined frequency/size of water changes. My nitrates ran low, and I would feed heavier until readable.

Alk- was by far the least stable. Tested weekly or twice weekly to determine dosing.

Salinity- every time I added water.

Mrreefercanada · Feb 15, 2020

Quietman said:
So this got me wondering if I could come up with a decision matrix for determining testing frequency. Slow Saturday here. I'll probably describe this more in my build thread, but here's something I came up with to help determine each persons test frequency based on their tolerance for risk, test equipment, design, etc.

Now if I can just figure out how to post a spreadsheet (probably need to do a dropbox for this).

I added my "Actual" last after figuring out the individual ratings. Found it interesting this held up more or less to my actual, with the exception of pH - normally that would be weekly for me but since I have Apex I monitor it continuously. I also don't monitor Alk quite as frequently as bi-weekly (meaning twice a week).

I will also increase frequency based on changing dosing or adding livestock/food which I suppose would be changing "normal variance".

Anyhow, I thought it an interesting exercise.

Impact
Normal Variance
Indicator
Potential Failure
Ease of Test
Sum of Ratings
Frequency Recommended
Actual Frequency
Properties

Temp
3
1
3
3
3
13
Daily or Continuously
Continuously
pH
2
2
2
1
3
10
Bi-Weekly
Continuously
ORP
2
3
3
2
3
13
Daily or Continuously
Continuously
Salinity
3
1
1
2
2
9
Weekly
Weekly
Nutrients

NO3
2
2
1
2
1
8
Weekly
Weekly
PO4
2
2
1
2
1
8
Weekly
Weekly
Minerals

Alk
2
1
3
2
2
10
Bi-Weekly
Bi-Weekly
Ca
1
1
2
2
1
7
Weekly
Weekly
Mg
1
1
1
1
1
5
Monthly
Monthly

Rating Definition
Impact
Normal Variance
Indicator
Potential Failure
Ease of Test

Total Rating and Corresponding Test Frequency Recommendation
3
Negative and severe impact in hours
Highly variable in <24 hours with control
Indicates imminent loss of livestock
High risk of failure of direct control
Automatic Testing

12
Daily or Continuously
2
Moderate impact over days
Moderate fluctuation with normal usage or build up rate
Indicates potential loss of livestock
Moderate risk or control or indirect response failure
Instrument; Simple test; <2 minute result

10
Bi-Weekly
1
Little to no noticeable impact over days
Low usage or build up rate
Indicates less than optimum health
Low risk of control or indirect response failure
No Instrument;Complex test; >2 minute result

7
Weekly

Wow ! Great response and info! Very interesting ! Thank You

Mrreefercanada · Feb 15, 2020

PatW said:
It depends on the system. After testing for awhile, you should get an idea of what needs testing and how often. I have an SPS dominant tank.

I test Mg once in awhile and it never varies much.

I test salinity daily. It usually does not vary but it takes virtually no time to test so why not?

I test Ca a couple of times per week. I dose the same amount as ALK but sometimes I forget.

ALK. I have dosers dosing twice daily. I test it daily and add what is needed to keep it in line. My system is rather high demand. And SPS corals really like this to be pretty constant.

Phosphate I run it at .03 ppm. I measure daily. I run a chaeto refugium. So I dose it to maintain it. It kind of bounces around.

Nitrate. I keep it between 1 and 2 ppm. I measure daily but it stays pretty constant.

Temp. I check it most days but the controller maintains it pretty well.

I agree that it depends on your system! If your in tune with it you come up with a natural testing regime based on your experiences with your system.
Thanks for your input very useful

Rpc07 · Feb 15, 2020

I’ll start by saying my tank is a little over 2 years old. I test alk , salinity and ph daily to every other day at the latest and I check cal, mag, p04, n03 once a week. Testing alk daily has helped me really tune in to my tank and based on how my corals look i generally have a good idea what my parameters are going to be.