Testing the water (and other chemical stuff) - Looking for info on water testing

J

JumboAg99

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[1 10 gallon tank + salt water + live sand + live rock + other tank eqpt... I now have everything I need. Now I wait for several weeks.

There are about a zillion different possible things to test for with saltwater tanks. What do I REALLY need to be keeping an eye on. (Remember, it's a small tank so it will be more sensitive to change and could spiral out of control really quickly.)

The obvious ones are pH, Ammonia, Nitrate/Nitrite. What else?

What's a good tool (brand/model) for checking salt content? I've heard the plastic hydrometers can be very inaccurate.
What about alkalinity?

For a mini-reef, what should I be looking for (numbers wise) for keeping a healthy tank? (Meaning what pH is good, what salt content, what alkalinity, etc…)

Calcium? Iodine? Will I need to be adding additives to the tank every X days/weeks to keep the right levels of various minerals?]
 
[At first, your main parameters to check is ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. When you get ready to do corals, then calcium, alk, and iodine really come into play. For checking specific gravity (salt level) many people use refractometers. They are far more accurate than floating hydrometers, and you can get em for around 50 bucks on the internet. For a reef tank, you want stable temps in the high 70s or low 80s. Calcium around 450, PH a little above 8, Alk around 10, nitrites and nitrates below 10, ammonia 0, specific gravity around 1.023.

You will be needing to does calcium and iodine regularlly, different supplements require different amounts of dosing. Be careful with a 10 gallon...evaporation can kill you. With such a small amount of water to begin with, just a little evaporation can totally throw off your parameters. I would look into getting some sort of gravity fed top-off. Oh yea...many lfs will test your water and point you in the right direction. Good luck!]
 
[mmiller40 is correct about the specific gravity. Corals thrive with higher sg, and fish thrive with lower sg. Ich and other fish diseases thrive with a sg around 1.025, which is why I usually keep in a little lower.]
 
[Unless you are going with all softies I would ex-nay the iodine.

It's very easy to misdose and many of the experts recommend not even testing or controlling it.

Only other thing I would add is to test for Phosphate every once in a while. It should always be zero but phytoa nd food have a lot in it so it does turn up occasionally. If it does do a major water change or run a polyfilter immediately. The stuff will give you an algea outbreak so fast you won't know what hit you especially early on in tank life!


Otherwise spot on. You should be OK with topoff but you do need to stay on top of it. No more than 5% (half gallon) max should ever be allowed to evaporate without topoff or you will be all out of whack. Just make it part of your routine. On my 20 gallon I do it on Weds and Saturdays (hey just like the lotto song) and never have to add more than a half gallon so I'm guessing you'll add about a quarter gallon every 3 days or so.

For the money you can't beat Salifert test kits. Great for Amm, trite, trate, Alk, Ca, Magnesium, phosphate and anything else you would want to measure.

Here is a great article about water parameters.

RHF Water Parameter Article]
 
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