Water Testing

[ChiTown81]

I have a 40 Gallon Aquatop AIO tank, what tests do I need to do weekly and monthly? Once it’s set up I’m mostly going to have some coral and a few fish. And how often will I need to do water changes?

 

[Fish Think Pink]

I have a 40 Gallon Aquatop AIO tank, what tests do I need to do weekly and monthly? Once it’s set up I’m mostly going to have some coral and a few fish. And how often will I need to do water changes?

weekly water changes are the norm, but you'll get different opinions

test temperature, salinity, pH, nitrates for fish
test for corals add to above with tests for phosphates, alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium

some days when I'm testing, I feel more like a chemist than a reefer. Research different kits as some make it much easier than other companies kits. API is prone to errors, but their nitrate kit has been SO easy compared to other offerings that I've used it (everyone will jump on me now... BUT) Hanna just introduced a high range Nitrate test kit that is simple so when BRS has it available later this month, I will be upgrading test kit for nitrate (finally no more, how yellow does that seem...lol)

Note the Hanna low range phosphorus test kit is testing phosphorus, not phosphate. It's easy and I recommend it, but then convert phosphorus to phosphate... suspect most don't and actually have phosphates 3x higher than they think... https://www.hannainst.com/hubfs/006...phate-conversion-table--hanna-instruments.pdf