What do you test daily and why?

Fisherman Joe · Jun 19, 2020

Recently got myself a GHL aquarium computer and a KH Director, it tests the Alk 2 a day and I love it.

Other than that, I've take to testing the Phopshate daily and its made me much more confident in my nutrients and feeding levels. I also don't run any GFO now with is cheaper, my refugium seems to keep on top of it!

BUT even though the Hannah Phosphate checker is only 5 min (2 min mixing and 3 min to test) I find I'm relcutant to stay on top of it until there's a problem. Typical human nature right?

Anyone got any tips for making daily tests easier? What else do you test and why?

Anchor · Jun 19, 2020

I have found testing phos daily is not needed. I do mine once a week.. Alk daily (all manual with Hannah) and calcium and nitrates weekly. I have never seen large swings unless something died and I do head counts every day.. only thing with a swing has been Alk.

As an added note, I dont have SPS.

Miller535 · Jun 19, 2020

I would never test anything daily. Alk is a good one to check a few times a week. Nitrate, phosphate, Calcium, magnesium all change very very little day to day. I test all of those once a week.

Fisherman Joe · Jun 19, 2020

I think tight phosphates in an SPS tank is important from my experience.

They lose colour with 0.0 phosphates and anything >0.1 too.

Eventually when its under control I will test daily and then every other day. I just wished PO$ tests were automate able - "Take my money"

Miller535 · Jun 19, 2020

Fisherman Joe said:
I think tight phosphates in an SPS tank is important from my experience.

They lose colour with 0.0 phosphates and anything >0.1 too.

Eventually when its under control I will test daily and then every other day. I just wished PO$ tests were automate able - "Take my money"

While that's true about PO4 and SPS, PO4 does not change much from one day to the next.

X-37B · Jun 19, 2020

I test alk daily. Sometimes every 2 days.
Not really needed as I run a carx but I have a 1 year log of levels.
Takes a couple minutes.

Sierra_Bravo · Jun 19, 2020

Under normal and stable conditions I monitor pH and temp daily, test alk and PO4 bi-weekly, test NO3, Ca, Mg, and salinity weekly, and perform an ICP test every 3 months.

If something is out of kilter or I've made some type of change, then I test as needed.

blstravler · Jun 22, 2020

I test Alk daily and PO4 weekly and NO3 monthly.

Nilo S · Jun 23, 2020

I find that testing PO4 the day after you dose anything new to the tank to be useful. For example, I usually feed my corals on Tuesdays and do weekly testing (Alk + PO4) on Sundays, but I decided to test PO4 a day after feeding my corals just to check the effect of Reef Roids and I found out that the amount I was feeding increased PO4 from 0.03 to 0.29, a whopping 0.26ppm! Also when I feed a ton of selcon-enriched freeze-dried mysis, PO4 increases a little too much too, 0.07ppm or so.
The upperside is that I now know how much Reef Roids to throw into the tank when PO4 levels hit 0.