Your testing schedule AFTER cycling...and before fish or corals...

[Sk8r]

Get decent tests. Kits look good, but the elements don't wear out at the same rate---AND---if at all possible, you want NUMBERS, not colors. Some tests by their very nature are color-matching. Fine. But numbers for at least alk, cal, mg (alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium). EVERYBODY needs alkalinity. The other two are mandatory for stony corals, clams, etc, and they are not a bad idea for other types of tanks, since these 3 are water stabilizers, once in balance.
Why?------here's chemistry in a nutshell: mg is your chief stabilizer. It gets used real, real slowly. As long as your mg is 1200 or above (1350 is good) the alk will not fall. And ALK determines the 'comfort zone' for fish and corals. MG is the FIRST reading you want to get on target: it steadies the other two.
Keep your alk at about 8.3---this gives you some midrange wiggle room. Do not go crazy trying to get it there all at once. Test daily until you can get it steady at 8.3. 7.9 is the bottom of the comfort range. Try not to get it over 9. Remember it will NOT stabilize if your mg isn't 1200 or higher.
Your calcium should be at 420. If you have stony corals, putting kalk powder in your ATO reservoir will constantly feed a little in daily due to evaporation. This can feed a 75 gallon hungry reef.
If you are dosing 2-part, seek advice and follow instructions.

Most of all, be prepared to test every single morning of a new tank's life---just get up early. First get your mg right. That may take you days. Do not over dose, and follow instructions. Test BEFORE you add: afterward will be near-meaningless for the next 8 hours. Takes a while to 'work in'.
Second get your alkalinity right. Same rule applies---and do it after you get your mg set right.

Those of you with controllers, just go for stable at 1350 mg and 8.3 alk, and your tank will support fish and soft coral and inverts nicely.

If you're going stony, you still have to go for the calcium balance, but if the first two are 'on' and proper, this is just a matter of dosing calcium up to 420---and letting something supply the calcium on a nearly continual basis (kalk in the ato for a new tank or under-75 tank, or a calcium reactor for older and larger and way hungry reefs.)

If you do it right, you can go on vacay for a month and come back to a perfectly balanced tank.

 

[Nixy]

Thank you so much for this info in a concise post! Perfect timing--I'm almost to this stage right now!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Sk8r]

If you understand the interaction of these three chemicals in fresh and salt water, your hobby will be so much easier. Once you get these in balance, you need only test one element once a week---magnesium. Why? because if mg is still within the safety zone 1200 to 1500, (1350 is a nice plateau to rest on) your alkalinity won't fall; and if you are using kalk in your topoff water, that's continually supplying calcium, which won't fall either. It'll hang at about where you put it, 420, at the alkalinity you set.

For the curious, this is how the ocean does it: magnesium is one of the most common minerals on Earth, and it is pretty steadily there in sea water; alkalinity of seawater ranges from about 7.9 to 9---and that's how acid or basic the water is, RELATED to ph, which bounces around and is not a reliable measure in salt water: but it's the in-the-zone alkalinity that helps calcium dissolve---and the ocean gets calcium from limestone rock, aragonite sand, and old dead corals and shells...In the ocean, recycling is constant.

So when you set up that magnesium level, and that alkalinity level, in your tank, your salt mix is supplying enough calcium to keep things happy---it gets replenished with your water changes. (So does boron and selenium and many, many things too tiny to add without going nuts!)
The reason you have to supply kalk if you have clams or stony coral is simply that as corals grow, they suck up a huge, huge, huge amount of calcium, laying down more and more skeleton. Before I started using kalk for the first time, I found three very small corals were demanding pricy bottled calcium at the rate of teaspoons of this 18.00 a bottle stuff a day. THAT's why you use kalk. At a few dollars for 2 pounds, it's budget-friendly. I'd hate to feed only Kent Turbo-Calcium to a whole reef! [the price]

Oh, and the other oceanic miracle with kalk as your calcium? ONLY 2 teaspoons per gallon CAN dissolve in water---so it's not going to overdose. It's one of the safest additives you can use. Just be sure you and your autotopoff are good friends before you use it, because a topoff accident can shoot too much fresh water and kalk into your tank. The kalk isn't really much problem, just white dust on everything, but the salinity change is not nice.

 

[Sk8r]

One other note: salt brands differ wildly in how much calcium and magnesium they contain. Oceanic is a good brand for a well-developed stony reef, because it keeps mg high; but it may not be the best for a new stony reef, because mg may be too high and pile up in the system. Fish-only salts are cheaper, but they are real low in calcium, and might cause you to spend more money replacing it. Instant Ocean tends to be lower in mag and calcium, and, again, you may start with a particular salt, then need to change it as your tank's needs change. Changing salt mix is not a big issue as long as you understand the difference in the mix: read the ingredients (online) and compare the calcium and mg. Buffer is in there---which is why you want to discard any salt that has become a brick due to moisture: the buffer is shot, and this can cause you alk issues. Keep it sealed!

 

[LuizW13]

Thanks Sk8r!!