5 months into this amazing hobby!

[tang daddy]

Originally Posted by jason604

After the first month I stopped checking the water parimeters. I only put in some KH whenever I remember to(about 1-2times every 2 weeks). I dose calcium with the purple up about 3 times since I got my tank lol. An I never ever checked Mag or dose it(never even bothered to get the kit). Everything in my tank seems to be just thriving and growing very quickly. Dunno what the big fuzz about dosing daily and checking parimeters very few days. Seems like its hugely overrated. Anyways I thought ill Throw in a pics of my koi ponds. Been neglecting it greatly since I got my reef tank lol.

The people that usually test their tanks for alk ca and mg are probally ones who have spent a lot of money on equiptment to grow sps, if you spent $2000 on sps you may want your investment to live....in this case testing would be required!

If you have a few sps that didn't cost very much, then losing it is not a big deal I guess...

I think someone already mentioned but if your tank is mostly softies and a few Lps then the ca and alk won't drop much.

If your tank is 80% sps and all of them were growing and encrusting then the alk ca and mg could drop quite fast.

I use to be like you and drop some ca and alk in whenever, most of the sps grew so I wasn't worried. It wasn't until I neglected my tank for several months and finally one day decided to test just for curiousity sake to see where everything was at, I was shocked my alk was at 4.5 and the other 2 was lower. Algae was growing rampant corals were recessing and dying. Anyways since then I have been abit more diligent with testing and to my suprise params drop at a very fast rate.

To each their own, some people look at their tank and if everything is fine don't test, some test daily because they are trying to get a base line for auto dosing, I now test weekly just to make sure everything is where they should be, and some people couldn't care less where their params are.

I am not trying to lecture you, but just trying to shed some light on the matter, just when I thought I had everything dialed in for dosing I got lazy and skilled testing for about a week and a half, then I started to notice my chalice frags recessing and thought it was something else causing it. To my suprise the alk was at 5. After correcting the params the chalice slowly healed itself. In this hobby you always learn something new.

Your tank is coming along nicely, good luck!