Testing parameters..alk..cal..mag

[James5214]

So I have a Duncan a branching hammer and a newly added blue tip torch and I know they are lps and do require more attention and are more needy than softies like my zoas or pipe organ or Xenia. So my question is I want to test my alkalinity, cal and magnesium but want to use a good test kit so I have a more accurate idea of my numbers so I know where to go from that point. Which test kit would you prefer for testing these parameters? And will weekly water changes be enough to replenish these parameters as I do not want to get into the whole dosing and chasing numbers. Thanks guys

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Good kit for alk,mag,and calcium is Salifert. It's $45-46 for the core kit at saltwateraquarium.com so you get all 3.

Do you have a full tank pic ? If just a few LPS frags I think you are good with weekly water change.

You'll want to test nitrate and phosphate too. For those I like Hannah checkers

Good luck!

 

[James5214]

I have a video of my corals

 

[James5214]

Not a full tank picture though. I can get one once lights are on later in a few hours.

 

[James5214]

Here's a video of my corals. The Xenia and pipe organ aren't in video

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

You have nice frags there and pretty chunky too. I would start testing for sure. What salt are you using? The salt you use should have the parameters as a baseline.

 

[James5214]

Thank you. I have found a guy on offerup by me in Tampa who has a at home operation and goes to whole saler. So I don't have to pay ridiculous store prices. And they are all fat and meaty frags. I paid 60$ for that blue tip torch. I use pre mixed redsea coral pro from my LFS for water changes

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Yeah, I buy from reefers that sell on reef2reef. My last purchase was from WWC but only because I have $50 credit I haven't used yet. Much better deals from reefers selling on here.

Red sea coral pro has elevated parameters. Which is great for weekly water changes to keep up depleted elements.

 

[James5214]

I love wwc corals as their colors are so vivid and bright and good quality of course but I mean for instance the bob Marley zoas are 59.99 on wwc for I think 3 polyps. My coral guy has a plug with maybe 10-12 heads of bob Marley and told me he would do for 60-70$. I may end up snagging it if someone else doesn't. But I know it's a little more expensive for the redsea but I have only a 20L and I do anywhere from 4-5 gallons water change a week so that cost me around 6$ at lfs I can handle that lol. Want to give my corals the supplements they need without dosing. I do not do not want to dose! Want to be as natural as possible

 

[James5214]

There's a full picture of tank well we're all the corals are. There is a few inches on each side of this picture of tank space.

 

[Smoke-Town]

I would get the Hanna egg checkers for alkalinity and phosphate(ULN model). They are easy and fairly accurate.

For magnesium I always used salifert which is pretty easy but slightly tedious. I currently use red sea kit which is a nice kit, but reagent A is super annoying to add 1 drop and shake 5 times before next phase. No experience with the Hanna magnesium checker as it came out a week after I bought the red sea kit.

For calcium I think salifert is the easiest to perform. I bought the Hanna checker to hopefully make checking calcium less tedious, but so far I find it to be more steps than the salifert which defeats the purpose to me. Maybe once I get used to it I'll change my tune but so far not impressed with it.