Water Testing

[derrick orosz]

so I never test my water.... for anything... like ever...

three times a week I put in 3 table spoons of kalk. saturday mornings I toss in a lid full of magnesium, sometimes I toss in some iodine and a couple times a week I toss in fuel (amino acids ). and once every 6 months I do a 10 gallon water change ..well probably closer to 8-10 months lol

all my corals are doing well...my sps grow well and look good so something has to be close to right but do I remember correctly there's somewhere you can mail water samples too and they will do a battery of tests and get you results of all the levels?

I'm interested to know where everything is at but have zero interest in actually doing the testing.

 

[LIttle Reef Keeper]

Are you referring to the TritonLab water analysis?

 

[Kjmsmith]

Dont do it!!! LOL!!! Like you, I never used to check my parameters (except for salinity and temp monitoring) and things looked healthy - good coral growth, fish reproduction etc for 4 years. Recently curiosity killed the cat and I thought that I should be more attentive to the actual levels so I broke down and bought all new Salifert kits and since then all I do is stress over my NO3 and PO4 which according to most everything you read are off the charts and my tank should not be alive let alone thriving. It seems like now I'm just waiting for it to crash while I battle to lower these 2 values before I even start testing for all the other elements. I liked the stress free aspect of this hobby before water testing. I do believe that if you treat your tank by how it and its inhabitants look - not by colours on a card, you can be successful. You just need to pay attention and know your tank as all tanks are different in how they react. Go ahead and mail a test in, but be prepared for the report you might get back.

 

[Nighthawk26]

so I never test my water.... for anything... like ever...

three times a week I put in 3 table spoons of kalk. saturday mornings I toss in a lid full of magnesium, sometimes I toss in some iodine and a couple times a week I toss in fuel (amino acids ). and once every 6 months I do a 10 gallon water change ..well probably closer to 8-10 months lol

all my corals are doing well...my sps grow well and look good so something has to be close to right but do I remember correctly there's somewhere you can mail water samples too and they will do a battery of tests and get you results of all the levels?

I'm interested to know where everything is at but have zero interest in actually doing the testing.

I had the Fauna Marin Test kit pro version once... was nice to see results, and they will give very clear direction how to correct whatever may be off.

I actually happen to have another unused kit I will likely be looking to sell. Price of the kit includes Bigshow frags sending the test in for analysis. If interested, let me know.

 

[derrick orosz]

Are you referring to the TritonLab water analysis?

yes! thank you

 

[derrick orosz]

I

Dont do it!!! LOL!!! Like you, I never used to check my parameters (except for salinity and temp monitoring) and things looked healthy - good coral growth, fish reproduction etc for 4 years. Recently curiosity killed the cat and I thought that I should be more attentive to the actual levels so I broke down and bought all new Salifert kits and since then all I do is stress over my NO3 and PO4 which according to most everything you read are off the charts and my tank should not be alive let alone thriving. It seems like now I'm just waiting for it to crash while I battle to lower these 2 values before I even start testing for all the other elements. I liked the stress free aspect of this hobby before water testing. I do believe that if you treat your tank by how it and its inhabitants look - not by colours on a card, you can be successful. You just need to pay attention and know your tank as all tanks are different in how they react. Go ahead and mail a test in, but be prepared for the report you might get back.

don't really see myself changing anything just curious where everything is