Frequent Testing Can Prevent Problems Occurring in Your Marine Aquarium

Welcome to Simple Reefs. We are a brand new website designed to take the stress and expense out of starting your very own marine aquarium. We’ve been talking about marine aquarium test kits a lot, lately. Today, we are wrapping the subject up by talking about how Frequent Testing Can Prevent Problems Occurring in Your Marine Aquarium.

We have already spent a decent amount of time talking about the importance of test kits. The truth is, however, that doesn’t really tell the entire story. A test kit loses all importance if you simply choose not to use it. You need to establish a routine schedule of testing your marine aquarium’s water that includes daily checks, weekly checks, bi-weekly checks, and monthly checks.

Let’s have a look at the reasons why a routine and frequent cycle of water testing is so important to your marine aquarium. Taking note of the points in this article will save you both time and money in the long run so let’s talk about it.

Catching Up On All Things Test Kit Related

You may want to check out some of our previous content on this subject to catch up. Test kits are a really underappreciated part of your saltwater toolkit and can help you prevent a bunch of problems before they occur. Like a lot of things in life, in the marine aquarium world an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

• The Importance of Test Kits To a Marine Aquarium
• Which Test Kits Should You Buy for Your Marine Aquarium?
• Why You Should Avoid Low Quality Test Kits
• Why High Quality Test Kits are a Good Investment

To quickly summarise a few key points. Test kits are incredibly important when it comes to making your life a whole lot easier. There are a few essentials (Nitrate, Ammonia, Salinity) that you should definitely buy and test often.

High quality test kits are a larger initial investment but will save you money in the long run as they are more accurate and have a higher level of precision. Every living thing in your marine aquarium contributes to a delicate balancing act that can go wrong in drastic ways. A frequent testing schedule can help you prevent these things happening and make that balancing act a little easier.

A Delicate Balancing Act

We’ve talked a lot about how, basically, everything in your marine aquarium is a careful balancing act. Whether it is making sure that the fish you buy don’t fight; Laying things out so that the coral you fill your rocks with doesn’t start engaging in chemical warfare; or simply picking the type, and amount, of lighting you provide to your tank. There is a carefully curated equilibrium with everything in your aquarium and maintaining stability is key to success.

Your water is no different. You want to maintain stability as that is key to the health of your tank’s residents and the growth of your coral. Everything in your aquarium is impacted by a lack of stability. Elements like Nitrates, Ammonia, Nitrites, and Phosphates need careful monitoring to keep them in check.

This is even more true for advanced tanks that have delicate coral. You can even throw things like Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium, and Trace Elements, into the mix. The more advanced the setup, the more delicate and the more vulnerable to catastrophe it will be.

Problems can occur quickly in a marine aquarium because there are so many variables to take into account. How much you are feeding, how often you perform water changes, how much of a certain element you dose, how many fish you have. It can all go wrong in the blink of an eye.

The most concerning thing about this is that the majority of problems that can take place in a marine aquarium are completely invisible to the naked eye. You aren’t going to see sudden nitrate spikes, you aren’t going to immediately notice a big pH swing. You will only know about these problems once they have happened and you are suddenly dealing with coral die off or an algae explosion.

Preventing Problems From Occurring

Marine Aquarium Test Kits are your window into the hidden world of your water’s parameters. They are there specifically to give you a head start in the fight against major problems.

If you maintain a rigorous and frequent testing routine, you are going to notice things beginning to change before it becomes a major issue. If you can detect subtle movement in your test results, you can start an investigation into what is causing it and stop it dead in its tracks.

Let’s say, for example, every week you test your nitrates, your phosphates, and your ammonia levels. You jot the results down and compare them to the previous week’s results. While doing this, you notice that your nitrate levels have taken a slight, unexpected, leap.

It might not be a huge amount but it is a bigger leap than you have experienced in previous weeks so it merits some investigation. After all, we wouldn’t the problem to get worse, would we? This is exactly why we are sticking to frequent testing.

You look into it and realise that your fish are eating less. Or you examine the possible cause and realise that the bulb on your refugium has blown so your macro algae isn’t growing. You now have a golden opportunity to prevent things getting a lot worse. You can cut down your feeding or slap a new bulb in your refugium.

Thanks to your weekly routine of testing, you noticed this problem early. You can perform an extra water change to bring the levels down or fix whatever is causing the problem. The nitrate levels never climb beyond where they were when you noticed the issue because you were testing and had a chance to rectify it.

The Worst Case Scenario

Now, let’s say that you aren’t keeping up with frequent testing. In fact, you only test your water once a month, or not at all. This is the worst case scenario for your marine aquarium, its residents, and your wallet.

As we mentioned earlier, all the problems in your tank can become worse and worse with very little warning. By the time you notice a lot of algae growth or coral dying off, it is already severe. It is going to cost you time and money to fix.

Without a frequent testing regime, you would never notice the minor increases that indicate a growing issue. The problem would continue unresolved and the nitrate levels would climb unabated. By the time it comes to actually testing your water you have a huge accumulation of nitrates and it is going to take time and money to fix it.

I have fallen foul of this, myself. Check out my most recent Mishap Mondays article – That Time I Neglected Testing and My Nitrates Shot Through The Roof. It’s going to do a great job of illustrating how badly things can go wrong when you don’t stick to frequent testing. As well as giving you an example of how not testing can end up costing you a lot of money in the long term.

As I always say on Simple Reefs, my mistakes can save you money. When my testing routine has become lax, my reward has been an accumulation of waste that has taken weeks to fix. It is frustrating but it is my own fault for not maintaining a routine. Something which I always do, now.

Early Detection is a Window to Prevention

Your test kits are your trouble-shooters and can prevent a whole bunch of issues. They are going to help you anticipate and prevent problems in your aquarium like the following..

Frequent testing of these elements will give you a consistent and concise window into the hidden health of your aquarium’s water.

How Frequently Should You Test Your Water?

The short and simple answer when it comes to the question of how frequent testing should be is often. In fact, a better way to put it would be to say routinely. There are things you want to check weekly, things you want to check bi-weekly, and things you want to check monthly.

Set a routine that you follow rigorously, jot down the results, and track your parameters carefully over the life of your tank. Grab yourself a little notebook or diary and fill that thing up. Keep track of your parameters like you are a scientist (you’ll feel like one with all this testing). When you notice a change, slap on the white lab coat and get to work investigating.

Doing this will help you keep track of your aquarium’s consumption of key elements like calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium. It will help you notice nitrate and ammonia spikes so that you can take action and determine whether your current water change routine is sufficient.

You will probably want to come up with your own water testing routine. If you feel like you need a little help setting one up, check out our article on establishing a testing routine. It’s coming up on Monday.

In short

Frequent testing of your water can help prevent problems before they occur. Having a consistent and routine testing schedule will allow you to build a full picture of your aquarium’s health. You will know exactly when parameters increase or decrease and will know exactly how much by. This will allow you to fix the problem before it gets worse which will save you lots of money in the long run. Thanks for reading and spending your time at Simple Reefs.