How often do you test?

[Myka]

I have a maintenance company, and on all my clients' tanks I do the following:

Tank salinity - every week before water change
W/C bucket salinity - every week before w/c
Tanks with dosers (med-high demand) - cal and alk every week before w/c, Mg every 2nd week
Tanks without dosers, but lots of coralline - alk every week before w/c, cal every 2nd week
All reef tanks - NO3 and PO4 monthly
TDS in RO tubs - monthly
Check calibration of probes and refractometers - monthly


Fish only tanks - alk, NO3, and PO4 monthly, cal and Mg once every couple months. Yes, I dose fish only tanks. The tanks do better.

[gobytron]

ha ha...

It IS at least a LITTLE different when you are getting paid to test rather than paying to test on your own free time.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by gobytron

ha ha...

It IS at least a LITTLE different when you are getting paid to test rather than paying to test on your own free time.

I get paid by salary essentially as I charge a monthly fee, not hourly. So I do choose to test. The last thing I want is a Frogspawn getting brown jelly disease and I test the tank and alkalinity is at 6 dKH or something like that. I have to keep my bases covered.

My own tank I test cal, alk, mg bi-weekly. NO3 and PO4 monthly. Salinity before every w/c. It's low demand right now though, just kalk dosing.

[gobytron]

the stakes are higher for you to be sure.

Lots of us lose sleep over our own tanks but you might be one of the few who dies over someone elses...

[Dearth]

Until my partial tank crash due to fixation on the wrong problem 2 months ago I hadn't tested for months and now everything is back to normal all I check for is salinity during water changes

Each to their own

[gobytron]

Originally Posted by Dearth

Until my partial tank crash due to fixation on the wrong problem 2 months ago I hadn't tested for months and now everything is back to normal all I check for is salinity during water changes

Each to their own

in your case, would you testing regularly leading up the the issue?

Would testing have saved you from the crash?

I've never had a crash that testing would have stopped...it's always been due to unforeseeable circumstances like once, when in mexico, from drunk guests of my tenant pouring table salt into my 90 gallon reef.

[Dearth]

I was fixated on red cyano and ignored the nitrate buildup that I could see happening but was fixated on the red cyano. Could of testing caught it...most definitely and I paid the price for it but then that's the breaks.

I understand the risks involved as does any other reefer and have made a conscious choice to not be diligent with my testing and if it crashes nobody to blame but myself and if it doesn't then even better