This Chemistry Thing
 

Chemistry has never been my strong point. I'm much more of a physics girl. I've been trying to get a grip on how parameters affect and relate to each other, but the old grey matter is just not puzzling through this.

I was doing my testing last night, and I was very pleased with the numbers I was getting: until I got to alk.

If I do something to increase my alk, what will that change? I would really like to avoid dosing . . . but I'm sceptical that I can. I don't want to get caught in a dosing spiral, where one thing is being dosed to be corrected, and another three things are being dosed to correct wonky values as a result of the first dosing.

You Alk looks good, if I am reading your chart right. 7 dkh is fine. Mine was around 3 and I had to start dosing to bring it up. It's a little low, but nothing I would worry about.

Agreed, leave it alone :)

Oops.

I forgot to include the info that my Alk has dropped a lot in the last two weeks: from 9 to 7. I'm worried that it is going to continue to drop.

Everything else has really stabilized in the last two weeks. I've backed off on my water changes (doing fewer and less volume) and that seems to have really helped. My mag is still a litter lower than I would like to see, but it has improved (raised) quite significantly.

The improvement in this tank is crazy . . . considering what I've done to it. It is heavily (and temporarily) overstocked right now, as I shut down my Nano Cube due to temperature issues and moved everything into this one. One of the critters in the tank is being very heavily fed, too. It must have 4x the bioload that it should.

If my alk continues to drop . . . at what point do I panic and intervene?

google Balanced calcium and alkalinity, some good reads

Thanks!

95% of being able to figure this stuff out is in being to determine the correct search parameters.

This article looks promising:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php

For a 10 gal nano, you don't have to really worry about parameters. Just buy the best salt h20 or reefers best, do a 2 or 3 gallon water change every week and all the chemicals that you need should be in the salt.

It won't be 10 gallons for long. We're moving it into a 40B within the next six weeks. It will still be a nano, but it will be a much bigger nano.

Even with a 40 gal, as long as you buy the top salts( which should have all your necessary chemicals in it ) I think you can get by with frequent 8-10 gal water changes,and not have to worry about dosing and other additives.
Makes life much easier. I used to dose regularly, but lost track of how much and when, mag.kalk.iodine. Etc. Now I just use the best salt and do 25 gal water change every 2 weeks

It is very important to me that I figure out how this chemistry thing works: whether dosing is required or not.

On one hand, I've got people telling me that I don't need to dose anything and that water changes are sufficient. On the other hand, I've got people predicting an apocalypse in my tank if I don't.

As I don't even have a cursory understanding of the subject matter it is very difficult for me to sift through what I'm being advised.

What is most noteworthy for me is that they guy I'd be buying the dosing system from is advising me not to. But, with the apocalyptic predictions that have been implanted in my head running around in there . . . well . . . I just really need to get a grip on the chemistry to be able to decide for myself what approach I need to take.