Water quality

[Mark Bradley]

i like to run a good husbandry regime and do water changes weekly and general sump maintenance daily. However, for me, there’s a line where it becomes a chore and testing water hits that mark. When one is looking for consistency does calcium moving between 410 and 430 achieve that or are the bands associated with ‘consistency’ smaller than that. I tend to check everything weekly and add supplements then. All my corals are growing and my fish are doing great - I’ve slowly set the tank up over the last 9 months and, to date, have had no casualties.
I do not have a dosing set up.
So I’m thinking about this - if I get calcium to 450ppm and monitor usage over a few days I could, in theory, calculate a daily addition of supplements required. I assume it’s better to add daily than in one ‘lump’ as that is what dosing set ups do.
OR - if you keep calcium between 400 and 450 is life going to be alright? I’ve read some people on here who hardly test and others who test constantly - I understand it’s a bit of a personal preference but I’m more interested in what is really necessary, and best, for livestock outside of individual ‘taste’.

 

[Chefwheredyougo]

Keeping your tank stable is what's most important. So no big swings once a week. Pick a target and try to stick with it

 

[Mark Bradley]

Keeping your tank stable is what's most important. So no big swings once a week. Pick a target and try to stick with it

Just to clarify - what is a big swing? 10ppm doesn’t sound a lot but presumably could be?

 

[Copingwithpods]

10ppm cal swing won't be an issue but say 10ppm alk swing might be an issue

 

[Nano sapiens]

I tend to check everything weekly and add supplements then.

Weekly testing can work in certain circumstances such as a new tank with few and small stony corals, all softies tank, etc.), but once stony corals and coraline algae get going, the usage and swings (especially alkalinity) will eventually be too great for the organisms to thrive in without some kind of regular replenishment routine. Appropriate additions provided often is of course optimal to maintain overall stability.

Alkalinity is the most import one to test and keep stable as fluctuations can happen quickly. In comparison, there is a lot more calcium in the water than alkalinity, so it tends to fluctuate much more slowly and weekly testing is usually fine. Magnesium depletion is typically much slower that calcium depletion, so testing once a month or so works for many people.

There are online calculators that can help with dosages such as:

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

[mike550]

@Mark Bradley I test every three days. In the beginning I would adjust every three days based on the readings. So I never had big changes — always within a few percent. After a few months of this I finally got a doser and was able to pretty much dial in the daily dosage amounts from the beginning.

 

[cmoore806]

not to crap on the parade of advising stability but a hanna calcium checker (as with any instrument) has measurement error. In the case of the calcium meter it is +/- 6% or at 400ppm +/- 24ppm at 450 that's +/- 27 so frankly daily measurement even if your calcium was EXACTLY the same day to day you will not be able to measure stability of +/-10ppm. Know the limits of the equipment and manage your chore chart accordingly.

Also, there isn't any point in measuring something you aren't going to do something about. If you measure calcium every 5-7 days you can calculate your need and dose accordingly. daily measurement would be a waste of reagent, every 3 days seems like a lot to me, but every 14 days seems too long. weekly may be about right for you too.

 

[mike550]

@cmoore806 I think your thoughts are spot on. I measure every three days out of habit. Over the last couple of months I did a massive water change (33% each day for three days in a row) and added a doser to dose ESV and NoPox. So until I get confident that I have a handle on my parameters are on target I’ll stay with every three days.

However, I don’t focus on absolute numbers like 8.4 vs 8.5 or 450ppm vs 430ppm. I really focus on change as a percent. To your point if I measure 450ppm for Calcium and three days later is 440ppm I don’t worry about for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a 2% change so thats not huge. Second, testing and operator error could cause that as well. But I will look at trends and if the next test shows 430 then I may revisit my dosing.

Someday I’ll get to testing once a week!