After 15 years of reef keeping, I find myself going back to the basics. Over the past year, I seem to have one problem after another. While there area many corals in my tank that grow no mater what, I still have several that I seem to never have any luck with. I have always had a simple philosophy when it came to keeping a reef aquariums. Water quality, water quality, water quality. There are so many people preaching this that it has to be true. Keep up with water changes and keep things consistent.
So I started looking around once again to make sure all my parameters are in line. Many parameters have broad ranges. Instead of starting another thread asking everyone what parameters they use or what they suggest, I did my own survey. I looked up the Tanks of the Months for the last 10 years and used my mobile app (Aquarimate) to chart the parameters of around 80 very successful reef aquariums. Although the majority of TOTM keeps their parameters about the same, there are still many that have beautiful reefs with wild parameters.
So this is how I collected the information. There are a few rules I followed:
Salinity 1.025 to 1.027 dSG: Most people stayed pretty consistent here.
Temperature 76° to 82°: Here is the first parameter that I noted a larger shift between reefs. In addition, many reefs have different temperature ranges depending on the season of the year. Most TOTM ran a few degrees warmer during the summer. A few of them actually ran there reefs 84° to 86° during the summer. For the most part I collected that:
pH 7.8 to 8.5 pH was pretty cut and dry.
Calcium 375 to 450 ppm: The majority of TOTMs are SPS tanks. Many are mixed but the majority of them are dominated by SPS corals. For this reason I payed close attention to Calcium and Alkalinity. Although there were a few people that kept their reefs on either the high or low side of normal, the majority are in the same range.
Alkalinity 7 to 11 dKH: Alkalinity had a pretty broad range. Only a few went outside the normal with about 80% staying between 8.0 and 10.0.
Magnesium 1250 to 1350 ppm: I was surprised to see how many people test magnesium but over 80% of the ROTMs tested.
Phosphates 0 to 0.003 ppm: This one seems to be a no brainer. 80% of the tanks were 0 to 0.03 and everyone else was less than 0.5 ppm.
Nitrates 0 to 0.2 ppm: This one is also best kept at zero but many keep theirs up to 5 ppm with no problems.
Conclusion: No one can deny that staying within the set parameters is important to a great and healthy reef. As the data shows, there are a few that go outside the lines and keep the same healthy beautiful reefs. So I believe it is safe to say that no matter what you keep your reef at, that it is just as important to keep it consistent and let everything acclimate to their environment.
As of writing this, my reef is starting to look great again with the following parameters:
So I started looking around once again to make sure all my parameters are in line. Many parameters have broad ranges. Instead of starting another thread asking everyone what parameters they use or what they suggest, I did my own survey. I looked up the Tanks of the Months for the last 10 years and used my mobile app (Aquarimate) to chart the parameters of around 80 very successful reef aquariums. Although the majority of TOTM keeps their parameters about the same, there are still many that have beautiful reefs with wild parameters.
So this is how I collected the information. There are a few rules I followed:
- Not all TOTM submited all parameters, so I entered what they submitted and left what wasn't submitted blank.
- Many use ranges like Ca of 400-440. For these reefs I would use the middle of 420.
- If the range was small like Alk of 8-9 then I would use the less number of 8.
- For those that said a parameter was undectable then I put 0 (zero) for the input.
Salinity 1.025 to 1.027 dSG: Most people stayed pretty consistent here.
- 53% use 1.026
- 36% use 1.025
- 6% use 1.027 or greater
- 5% use 1.024 or less
Temperature 76° to 82°: Here is the first parameter that I noted a larger shift between reefs. In addition, many reefs have different temperature ranges depending on the season of the year. Most TOTM ran a few degrees warmer during the summer. A few of them actually ran there reefs 84° to 86° during the summer. For the most part I collected that:
- 2% are 82°
- 2% are 81°
- 22% are 80°
- 27% are 79°
- 25% are 78°
- 11% are 77°
- 2% are 76°
pH 7.8 to 8.5 pH was pretty cut and dry.
- 80% are 8.0 to 8.2
- 14% are 8.3 to 8.4
- 4% are 7.5 to 7.8
Calcium 375 to 450 ppm: The majority of TOTMs are SPS tanks. Many are mixed but the majority of them are dominated by SPS corals. For this reason I payed close attention to Calcium and Alkalinity. Although there were a few people that kept their reefs on either the high or low side of normal, the majority are in the same range.
- 17% are 450 ppm or greater
- 23% are 421 to 449
- 51% are 400 to 420
- 9% are less than 400
Alkalinity 7 to 11 dKH: Alkalinity had a pretty broad range. Only a few went outside the normal with about 80% staying between 8.0 and 10.0.
- 1% was 12.0 or above
- 4% was 11.0 to 11.9
- 12% was 10.0 to 10.9
- 25% was 9.0 to 9.9
- 42% was 8.0 to 8.9
- 12% was 7.0 to 7.9
- 3% was 6.0 to 6.9
Magnesium 1250 to 1350 ppm: I was surprised to see how many people test magnesium but over 80% of the ROTMs tested.
- 1% was 1600
- 9% was 1400 to 1499
- 32% was 1350 to 1399
- 33% was 1300 to 1349
- 12% was 1250 to 1299
- 10% was less than 1250
Phosphates 0 to 0.003 ppm: This one seems to be a no brainer. 80% of the tanks were 0 to 0.03 and everyone else was less than 0.5 ppm.
- 38% was 0 or undectible
- 44% was in the range of 0 to 0.003
- 18% was 0.003 to 0.5
Nitrates 0 to 0.2 ppm: This one is also best kept at zero but many keep theirs up to 5 ppm with no problems.
- 8% was 5 or greater
- 33% was 0.5 to 5
- 59% was 0 or undectible
Conclusion: No one can deny that staying within the set parameters is important to a great and healthy reef. As the data shows, there are a few that go outside the lines and keep the same healthy beautiful reefs. So I believe it is safe to say that no matter what you keep your reef at, that it is just as important to keep it consistent and let everything acclimate to their environment.
As of writing this, my reef is starting to look great again with the following parameters:
- pH 8.2
- Temp 78°
- Salinity 1.026
- Calcium 420
- Alkalinity 8
- Magnesium 1450
- Phosphates 0
- Nitrates 5 (working to improve this one to 0)
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