Testing the water, every two weeks is a good idea to test your water for chemicals. The most important task for marine reef tanks are ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, dKH, calcium and phosphates.
If you have a fish on the aquarium you don’t have to test for calcium. Just follow the directions on the box and this test will give you the readings of the quality of your water.
If you have ammonia level 0.5 for example, then you might need a water changer, it could be a dead fish in the tank itself. This test let you know if there is a problem.
The first here you want your tank is ammonia which is toxic to the fish. Nitrite is where you want your second zero as nitrite is toxic to the fishes as well. The third zero you want is your nitrate as nitrates are food for unwanted algae.
Someone sell it for test kits have you take readings from the top? Whereas some, you must take readings through the side. Make sure to read the directions. The pH is the acidity or alkalinity of the water. Fresh water aquariums have a pH of approximately 7 whereas marine aquariums needed 8 to 8.4. In a fish only and reef tank, I liked a pH of 8.4 best. As the higher the pH the harder it is for algae to grow. If the pH goes lower than 8, this could mean your tank is not getting enough aeration or that you need to bring up the alkalinity to natural seawater level by water changed or you could add a buffer which raises the alkalinity.
Here, you see the pH is 8.1. Natural seawater has an alkalinity of 2.9 or a dKH of 8. If your dKH is up at the proper level at night when the lights go off your ph will not fall drastically at night.
When the violet changes from blue to pink on the dKH test that is when you take your reading. Here, you see if you look at the chart our dKH is 8. I like to keep my calcium up around for 75 as it gives the corals plenty of calcium to absorb. If you have a fish on the tank, you don’t have to test for calcium but if you have corals and coralline algae on your rock you should test for calcium levels.
In a calcium test, the violet turns from pink to blue. If you look at the chart our calcium is at 400. High calcium level helps to reduce algae build up.
Corals don’t like phosphates but algae likes phosphates. Water changes also help to reduce phosphates.
The more corals and less fish you have, the better your water quality will be and the easier it will be to maintain.
If you have fish in your tank, it's almost impossible to have zero phosphates. An acceptable level should be about 0.03 or less.
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