Water Quality

[dwdenny]

I know that this has probably been asked a million times so I am going to make it a million and one.

I know that Calcium, Alk/kH, pH, Magnesium, Phosphate, and Ammonia are the main water parameters to keep a close eye on and from reading most of Dr. Ron's articles as well as Nitrate and nitrite. I was mainly wanting to know what test kits everyone trusts the most. I know Salifert is probably the best but wow $110 for testing kits :wacko How often do you all test for these. When I had my FOWLR I test evry sunday for Nitrate, Nitrite, pH, ALk/kH but I used the Aquarium Pharmaceuticles test kits but did not like the way they had thier color chart colors where a little too close to being the same. I don't know if they have changed them or not. Any insight to these would be great.

[gjuarez]

I'm very irresponsible, I hardly ever check them. I rely on my livestock to tell me something is wrong. With frequent water changes everything is replensihed and the organics are diluted. Dont get me wrong, I do think they should be checked often, specially for a new tank.

[Tim Marvin]

I don't check mine very often anymore either.. New tanks are a must though. I always use salifert and seachem when I do though.

[dwdenny]

So how often will I need to check my tank. I know as it matures I won't have to check as much. I stoped checking my FOWLR at about 6 months and just checked everything about 2 a month.

[GaryP]

If you are running a reef tank especially an SPS tank I would suggest checking calcium and alkalinity every week and magnesium at least once a month. The rest of them will depend on how mature your system is. I rarely check the others if everything is looking good. IMO phosphate test kits are not worth the effort. Whether you are having a nuisance algae problem or not is probably the best test there is for phosphate. If your alkalinity is where it should be in a reef tank then you probably don't need to test for pH. Ammonia and nitrite should be test at least weekly when a system is cycling. Nitrate should be tested at least once a month.

You can get a combo ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, pH test kit for a lot less then the individual Salifert kits. You won't need most of them often anyway.

[dwdenny]

I saw that. When I get ti set up and cycling then I will get that one. When I start to add corals then I will get the other kits to test the water. Thanks GrayP forthe information.