Conditons

[odstar]

KH/Alk Carbonate Hardness/Alkalinity: ml's .10 KH Value In DKh 14.4 Alkalinity 5.14 meq/L

Phosphate P04 0.03 or .5-1.?? Salifert Test Kit

Ca Calcium .20 ml's 400 ppm


What are the IDEAL parameters?

[Cougra]

Stability are the ideal parameters. The exact numbers aren't nearly as important as keeping the water stable for the animals. To be honest it's not even known what the "ideal" numbers are as it depends on what animals you have in the tank and what type of tank you have. Even though all the animals come from the ocean and most from reefs there is still some differences in the water parameters in the wild from location to location. When you have a tank mixed with animals from around the world, they all have to adapt to the artificial parameters that we generate in the tanks.

Most people have elevated calcium, alk, and magnessium levels for their tanks compared to the wild because the corals grow faster then they would in the wild with the elevated levels. However if you are having problems keeping the water stable because you have to constantly dose things and it keeps swinging all over the place then you will do more harm then good.

Keeping the pH, Calcium, Alk and Magnessium levels stable is a balancing act as the water can only desolve so much.

With things like phosphate, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate they need to be as low as absolutely possible, however if you do have low readings of nitrates or phosphates then it's nothing to really panic about because the animals do have some tollerance for those parameters, however you are more likely to get algae.

Remember stability is the key.

[odstar]

Thanks for the words of wisdom. I appreciate it.

[daveat]

i try to keep my calcium at 450 ppm

the ocean is said to be between 420-450... i dunno if that is true or not though??

i agree with the stability though!

[oldsaint]

Not trying to disagree with you Cougra. I too try and keep my parameters as stable as possible, but here's is an interesting article by DR. Ron Shimek discussing stability on natural reefs and in reef aquariums.

One of the more constant concerns of many reef aquarists is keeping their reef “stable.” To this end, large amounts of money and many hours of effort are often spent on all sorts of gadgetry, paraphernalia, and activities all designed or used to keep the aquarium conditions stable. This is done because coral reefs have been described as being in some sort of condition of stability and this statement has entered into both the lexicon of reef aquarists and into their references. This is really, really, unfortunate. The quest for reef stability, much like the quest for the Cup of Christ, is doomed to fail; there is no DaVinci’s Code for the secret of how to succeed. Not the least of the reasons for the inevitable failure in the reef aquarists holy quest is a misunderstanding of the, always undefined, buzzword “stability” in the context of coral reefs.

http://www.reefland.com/rho/1105/reefc7.php

[Charlie97L]

well, i think we try to aim for stablity in terms of nitrates and AM and that stuff...

however, there are unstable factors in nature which we can't ever (or just don't) replicate in our reefs in our homes.

currents of lower/higher specific gravity. cold currents. storms that block out the light at irregular intervals. a large fish/animal dying in the vicinity. seasonal change and the effects that has on temperature... so when you factor all those in, the reefs really aren't as "stable" as we think they are. in terms of detrimental compounds (AM, NI, NA, PHO) sure, but otherwise, no.

our systems being closed, it tends to lend itself to the thought that stable is good, however one could argue that too much stablility will become a detriment if there is a slight problem with the tank. for instance, if you're temp has been rock solid at 77.5 for 4 years, and then you have a cold snap or power outage, and the temp drops to 74. this is an extreme example, but maybe your animals have gotten so used to 77.5 that they can't even handle 74, and most die, even though that's still within good parameters... something that with natural temp fluctuations in the wild, would never really happen.

this is the same sort of thinking of people who don't run UV sterilizers because they think it crutches the animals' natural immunities. if you create a cleanroom environment, the slightest contamination can be catastrophic.

so stability is good, to a point. it's all really subjective.