tshives26;949591 wrote: Tank is coming along great! I have all my RO/DI water, LS, and LR all setup. The water finally cleared up and I'm looking for advice on how to further ready the tank.
I'm looking for advice on levels of the water. Things like proper levels for salt, temperature, nitrates, etc. I know there are a handful of things that need to be on point before it's fish and reef ready. What do I need to do and look out for?
tshives26;949655 wrote: Forum mentality baffles me. Yes I could search the forums, even could search Google for more answers. I wasn't asking because I am lazy, I was asking because I like a more personal touch to finding my information. I like to reply with specific questions pertaining to my answers. But obviously that is not possible here so I will just do some searching then. Thanks for all your help
Tom,
The problem is that I can get you recommendations from respected reefers that will tell you to keep your corals at 82-84 degrees. I can also get you recommendations from respected reefers that will advise you to keep your corals at 76-79 degrees. Along with any other advice regarding extreme high or low recommendations specific gravity, KH, calcium, magnesium and other levels ad infinitum.
I don't believe anyone is telling you to research because they don't want to or aren't willing to give you the answers. There is so much available and contradictory info and advice regarding how to keep reef tanks that you have to have a good BS filter on when you do research. And by researching you get to see the vast array of advice, which, unfortunately in our hobby, is more anecdotal than anything else.
Any advice I can give you is that you are a long way along when you realize there are not a lot of absolutes in reefing, and many ways to the same goal. Once I got a bit of experience under my belt, I thought there were only certain ways of doing things regarding keeping SPS, and there aren't. There are many ways of doing the same thing.
Here is what I would recommend to you or anyone else: read the series of Reef Chemistry articles by Randy Holmes Farley. His articles are the the de facto reference for reef chemistry knowledge for anyone in the hobby for the most part. This is a link to the Reef Central Archives, where Randy's articles are the basis for many Reefers understanding of how their tank works on a biochemical basis. You will find recommendations for almost any topic relating to reef chemistry. I have read most, if not all of these. They are the basis for any chemistry knowledge I have in this hobby, and where I got the advice regarding what parameter to keep at what level, etc.
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102605">http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102605</a>
And if you don't want to reference these, my best advice is to find one or two reefers you know and trust that have nice reef tanks, like what you would want to have, and duplicate their efforts.
I did this as well. No need to reinvent the wheel. I duplicated existing, successful methods when I first started, in addition to reading Randy's articles.
