water testing

[ojmenard]

Well ive been 2 weeks getting the phosphates out of the tank but have finally succeeded. this weekend i am going to put about 80 lbs of rock in the tank. At what point to i start monitoring the calcium and other chemicals in the water. not the ammonia nitrites and nitrates. do i need to worry about calcium and stuff for the live rock or is that only when i start getting corals in the tank?

 

[fishmonkey]

you really need to only start worrying about that until you get corals into the tank.

im not sure, but i think that you could start testing calcium and adding calcium supplements so that when you do put corals in, they will have calcium for their needs. I guess it would all depend on when you are going to put the corals in.

 

[ojmenard]

im in no hurry just dont want to skip anything i wasnt sure if the liverock needed anything special other than lots of water flow.

 

[spikey]

I would suggest that you do a pH/ammonia/Nitrate/Nitrite test in a week, and then every 2nd day. I would also suggest that you check the S.G. at the same time and top up your tank with R.O water every day. This will keep your S.G perfect and it will also give you an idea of how much water evaporates each day. This may sound excessive, however, if you record the results you can see how the bacteria in your tank are growing. It is very interesting.

The rest of the testing I would not bother until you have your tank cycled. If you have regular water changes they will take care of themself.

Once the tank has cycled and you have added fish I would suggest weekly testing.