Your Thoughts On My Not So Regular Water Checks

[Luke.]

So my upgraded 40 gallon is beeing going since July 12th 2015. And about the last month or month and. A half I haven't checked anything but solinity and every other day top off water , I have the test kits I've just been busy and a bit lazy when I get home from work lol.. I know I know.. I just look i my tank and see all my corals with perfect colour and growing. Infact I've been in this hobby for about a and 3 months now and for some reason I've had corals growing faster i the past 3 months then I did for the rest of the time period in this hobby , i guess It just "clicked" the mini cycle finished .
So should I do weekly tests or just when things start to look wrong? I do use salfert test kits and I don't think you can find one on shelf for under 25$ so they are costly :/.

 

[scubasteve]

costly but they last for alot of tests you should check weekly until you know exactly what your reef consumes then you can check monthly and up dose and maintenance to match growth. going by looks isnt good because once things start showing effects its usually near the breaking point and hard to fix. catching the start of an issue before it gets bad makes for alot easier fix. when things go bad in a reef they go bad really fast so is good to keep on top of things especially in smaller systems. Large systems are a bit more forgiving but can still become a lost cause with neglect.

 

[Luke.]

Yeah I hear ya, everytime I do tests it's always the same im lucky or doing it worng lol , but I'll do at least every 2 weeks (before a water change)

 

[AdInfinitum]

It is important to know your parameters when things are going well so you know what has changed when something goes astray.

Too often when someone has an issue (and I agree with Steve, when it becomes noticeable the damage is already done) they do a bunch of tests and go "holy crap I have 20ppm nitrates" that's the problem! When actually those nitrates had been present for a long time. Meanwhile they see their Alk at 9.5 dkh and say all good when the truth is that their tank had been happy and cruising at 7.5 dkh until a sudden spike to 9.5.

Usually the most important thing is not what your levels are...but how they've changed...