If You Had To Choose Only One: Perfect Water Parameters or a Visually Healthy Tank? What’s More Important (To You)?

[darrick001]

I am the guy who had a nice looking tank and growing healthy corals and sent in a icp that stated low on a number of elements. Went and dosed the elements and saw a very sad result of numerous corals perishing sadly as many were grown from small frags and were a couple years old. No more icp tests for me!! Water changes only.

That's really sad to hear. I'm sorry for your loss. In hindsight do you think the recommended aditional minerals was enough to cause the crash or do you think it was some other contamination. I talked to someone else who had the same thing happen but they only added a small amount of minerals. Not near enough to kill anything but their tank crashed as well.

 

[billyocean]

Well..if my tank is visually healthy then I must have the perfect water parameters for my tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That's really sad to hear. I'm sorry for your loss. In hindsight do you think the recommended aditional minerals was enough to cause the crash or do you think it was some other contamination. I talked to someone else who had the same thing happen but they only added a small amount of minerals. Not near enough to kill anything but their tank crashed as well.

I don’t know if that situation was caused by the dosing, but I will say this with complete confidence:

Chasing numbers, as folks critical of the process like to call it, will NEVER cause a problem if the tests are accurate, the targets are appropriate, and the ways to attain the target are appropriate.

Aside from possibly wasting money, problems can only arise if the chase is fouled up in some fashion.

 

[darrick001]

I meant do you think the minerals were contained.

 

[darrick001]

I don’t know if that situation was caused by the dosing, but I will say this with complete confidence:

Chasing numbers, as folks critical of the process like to call it, will NEVER cause a problem if the tests are accurate, the targets are appropriate, and the ways to attain the target are appropriate.

Aside from possibly wasting money, problems can only arise if the chase is fouled up in some fashion.

100% agree great explanation

 

[smitten with ocean life]

I don’t know if that situation was caused by the dosing, but I will say this with complete confidence:

Chasing numbers, as folks critical of the process like to call it, will NEVER cause a problem if the tests are accurate, the targets are appropriate, and the ways to attain the target are appropriate.

Aside from possibly wasting money, problems can only arise if the chase is fouled up in some fashion.

this is interesting. so what would you call accurate tests? or maybe i missed it somewhere....i guess the reason i ''chase numbers'' is because just because my tank looks good today doesnt mean it isnt on the verge of crashing. and i want to avoid that of course! so i try to keep tabs on my numbers. but maybe im overthink ing it

 

[Miami Reef]

this is interesting. so what would you call accurate tests?

Changing parameters based on inaccurate tests will lead to the real parameter being too low or too high.

 

[buruskeee]

I voted perfect water parameters (assuming 100% accuracy) because a visually healthy tank would be a product of stability. You can have a visually healthy tank bordering on crashing if you are experiencing swings that hasn’t been realized yet.

With perfect water parameters held at a constant over the life of the tank, inhabitants would adapt and thrive, it would just require patience. If inhabitants are not happy, chances are something is wrong.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

this is interesting. so what would you call accurate tests? or maybe i missed it somewhere....i guess the reason i ''chase numbers'' is because just because my tank looks good today doesnt mean it isnt on the verge of crashing. and i want to avoid that of course! so i try to keep tabs on my numbers. but maybe im overthink ing it

I’m not claiming any particular test or method is accurate or inaccurate, but as Miami notes, a significantly inaccurate test (say, reading a Salifert titration syringe backwards, which sometimes happens) can be much worse than no test at all.

 

[Reefvision]

That's really sad to hear. I'm sorry for your loss. In hindsight do you think the recommended aditional minerals was enough to cause the crash or do you think it was some other contamination. I talked to someone else who had the same thing happen but they only added a small amount of minerals. Not near enough to kill anything but their tank crashed as well.

. I don’t really know if the additional minerals were the cause of the corals decline but the icp said to conduct multiple water changes as well as adding trace minerals. The system was(is) 200gal and pretty much right after these changes were done ,decline occurred. Haven’t had a icp done since and I have been using a hands off approach since. One thing that is not good is no nitrate reading in some time now and phosphate level at .135ppm. I am going to try the ammonium bicarbonate solution soon.