A reasonable expectation?

[Dogwood]

I have a 12gal tank, and I'm wondering if it's a reasonable expectation to simply do water changes weekly and not dose anything. The tank currently just has soft coral, one frogspawn, plenty of live rock. I'm using Oceanpure regular salt, not the Pro. The problem area I have is alkalinity. The make up water comes in right at 8.0dkh, should it be higher? I know the range is 8-12, but at the end of the week, prior to water change, tank water is at about 7. Ph seems to hover around 8, my test kit isn't too accurate...

 

thanks for any help,

Jeff

[CSoli921]

do you test specific gravity and calcium?

 

Edit: and also alkalinity

[CSoli921]

did you fall asleep at the computer? hehe

[justaguy2]

I think it is reasonable to expect weekly water changes to be sufficient to maintain most reef tanks without any additives.

 

This assumes 2 things. The salt mix contains sufficient amounts of what your animals need. The animals you keep don't consume anything faster than a weekly water change adds it

 

I think if you decide to go with an all SPS tank down the road you might find yourself needing to dose rather than rely only upon water changes, but with a less demanding group of tank mates the salt mix alone should be fine.

 

If the salt mix isn't working out, change it. Before doing that though try and test with reasonable accuracy to know what's in the salt. An unreliable test kit can sometimes be worse than no test kit at all. Many LFS will test your water for free.

[Dogwood]

Yep, test for just about everything except magnesium. Sorry for not responding, left town overnight...

do you test specific gravity and calcium?Edit: and also alkalinity

I'm using Salifert tests, so I feel they're reliable...however, I don't have a PH meter so I'm a little lacking there. So it would appear to me from your post, that my salt is deficient. What would you expect alkalinity to be in most salts? 9-10?

I think it is reasonable to expect weekly water changes to be sufficient to maintain most reef tanks without any additives.This assumes 2 things. The salt mix contains sufficient amounts of what your animals need. The animals you keep don't consume anything faster than a weekly water change adds it I think if you decide to go with an all SPS tank down the road you might find yourself needing to dose rather than rely only upon water changes, but with a less demanding group of tank mates the salt mix alone should be fine.If the salt mix isn't working out, change it. Before doing that though try and test with reasonable accuracy to know what's in the salt. An unreliable test kit can sometimes be worse than no test kit at all. Many LFS will test your water for free.

[SPS20]

Unless you are keeping lots of stoney corals, you should be fine with just water changes. My advice would be to test your Alk/Ca+ right after a water change, and then test it again every few days, as well as just before the next weekly water change. If the values don't fall much, then you would be fine with just water changes.