ARC Poll - What are your target tank parameters?

[mFrame]

Per request in another thread, thought this would be an interesting poll to run.

[mFrame]

Added temp to the poll, you can edit your answers if you already voted.

[Planeden]

Cool, thanks mike.

[FarmerTy]

Nice poll topic. Be nice to do another poll as well with reef tank type (sps, lps and softies, or mixed reef), targwt Ca levels, Alk levels, and Mg levels, use skimmer, type substrate, use refugium, use carbon, use GFO, use biopellets or some other type of carbon dosing, lighting, water change frequency, etc. You get the idea. :-)

-Ty

[George Monnat Jr]

When my tank had salinity...

[JamesL]

I had to guess on the temp part

[RobR]

Nice poll topic. Be nice to do another poll as well with reef tank type (sps, lps and softies, or mixed reef), targwt Ca levels, Alk levels, and Mg levels, use skimmer, type substrate, use refugium, use carbon, use GFO, use biopellets or some other type of carbon dosing, lighting, water change frequency, etc. You get the idea. :-)

-Ty

+ 1 this is a great poll topic. This is a great idea Ty would love to see a poll with the params you listed to see what everyone targets on their tanks.

[Neon Reefer]

So I know the voting is still early, but these early results are showing pretty much what other informal polling has shown on some other sites like: RC and Ask.com ect... ARC shows 66.667% of club members keep their reef tanks at or near (1.025 -1.027) NSW. And our results are skewed by only 3.334 % of the vote not being a reef tank. Shows we at least know what the rest of the world does LOL

[George Monnat Jr]

Since I was new to reef keeping, I went by Dr. Randy Holmes-Farley's recommended parameters. He bases his off of NSW.

As of this writing, I was getting 503 errors on his article, Reef Aquarium Water Parameters by Randy Holmes-Farley.

[mFrame]

So I know the voting is still early, but these early results are showing pretty much what other informal polling has shown on some other sites like: RC and Ask.com ect... ARC shows 66.667% of club members keep their reef tanks at or near (1.025 -1.027) NSW. And our results are skewed by only 3.334 % of the vote not being a reef tank. Shows we at least know what the rest of the world does LOL

Interesting, not that our most common salinity is 1.025 (14 votes), but that the trend actually leans lower than higher (by 9 votes to 7 votes as of this post). I tend to run lower because of reading I've done that indicates that hyposalinity helps combat some parasites. Will definitely be watching this once we hit a more representative sample.

Nice poll topic. Be nice to do another poll as well with reef tank type (sps, lps and softies, or mixed reef), targwt Ca levels, Alk levels, and Mg levels, use skimmer, type substrate, use refugium, use carbon, use GFO, use biopellets or some other type of carbon dosing, lighting, water change frequency, etc. You get the idea. :-)

-Ty

Each topic is limited to 3 poll questions, but I'll definitely work on setting up some more. They'll make great pinned topics and can cover the gamut of equipment, parameters, foods, etc.

[Neon Reefer]

Mike said

"Interesting, not that our most common salinity is 1.025 (14 votes), but that the trend actually leans lower than higher (by 9 votes to 7 votes as of this post). I tend to run lower because of reading I've done that indicates that hyposalinity helps combat some parasites. Will definitely be watching this once we hit a more representative sample"

Yes it is interesting, however the results so far are pretty evenly distributed at 9 / 7. or 6 % points overall w/ one vote not a reef tank and most likely a lower value. IMO a lot of people stay at the 1.025 value because they want to stay near the recommended level of 1.026 but fear evaporation rises in SG, while others ask the LFS what they keep their tanks at and many stay at 1.023 because of less stress to the fish and lower costs of maintaining the levels of so many gallons.

George shows us Randy's work and i must say IMO there is no other more trusted expert in the field than Dr. Farley. When I want to know something about water chemistry , He is the one i look to every time. And let me add one other thing. Another reason to keep SG levels at 1.026 than say 1.020 is that it is easier for the less than expert reef keeper to manage the foundation elements at higher SG levels; and while hypo salinity helps to reduce some parsites, research also shows that low foundation elements such as Mg can let some pest algae get a foot hold in the aquarium.

Looking forward to watching the results come in.

Thanks Mike. .

.

[Timfish]

I feel somewhat hypocritical as these are values I tell people not what I necessarily keep mine at or what I've seen corals and fish happy in. I've been quite surprised at times to test these three parameters and found them way out of tolerance but the animals looked fat and happy. Just goes to show the ol' eyeball isn't always right.

This system here is cooled only by fans and has 7 250 watt MH in the cabinet and fluctuates between 71 and 84 depending on the time of year, Daily fluctuation I don't think was more than a couple of degrees. The only thing that didn't like it was the pink Birdsnest would start to turn brown if the temp stayed at 72 or lower for any length of time.