Liquid test kits are far easier to use, IMO, and more accurate than test strips.
Here's an article that summarizes reef aquaria water paramters and the recommended levels:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php
I'll list all the chemicals that I sucessfully use (including salt mix), but there really are so many options (even DIY formulas) and many that can all lead to the desired result.
Calcium -- Seachem Reef Advantage Calcium (powder; also helps maintain magnesium)
Alkalinity -- Seachem Reef Builder (powder; it's Reef BUILDER, not the Reef
BUFFER -- the packages look very similar and one could easily be confused for the other)
Salt -- Reef Crystals, however any good quality salt will work just as well or possibly better in any given tank
Vitamin supplement -- Selcon (used to soak foods or can be added directly to the tank as food for filter feeders)
I just recently started dosing phyotplankton into our tank, but it's too soon for me to make any realistic conclusions. Some of our corals seem to have responded positively to it and their growth appears to have accelerated, but it's just too early to tell for sure. Nonetheless, our reef tank ran over a year without phytoplankton just fine, with many of our soft corals growing fast enough to require fragging every 6 - 8 weeks.
Many people prefer to use a two-part liquid calcium / alklinity supplement instead of the powders, such as C-Balance or Kent Tech CB. Or, you can make your own DIY 2-part solution, with supplies to do so available here if you cannot find them locally.
The truth is that there is more than one way to do a reef tank right. We all develop our own tips and tricks, while still doing other things sucessfully that many would consider bad. For example, I don't aerate / mix newly mixed sw for 12 - 24 hours, yet many people consider mixing it that long important. I mix it for an hour or two with a small powerhead, then it gets stored for up to 2 weeks without any problems.
You may want to consider keeping a reef tank journal / log. It can easily be done in MS Excel or any other spreadsheet / database type software as well as on paper. Basically, I record everything that I do to our reef tank -- water changes, test results, amount and type of food fed, when the skimmer cup gets emptied, when I dose chemicals, etc. It might seem a bit overboard, but being detailed helps to decide what's working, what isn't, and where something went wrong.
Best of luck to you! Keep posting if you have more questions!
Here's an article that summarizes reef aquaria water paramters and the recommended levels:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php
I'll list all the chemicals that I sucessfully use (including salt mix), but there really are so many options (even DIY formulas) and many that can all lead to the desired result.
Calcium -- Seachem Reef Advantage Calcium (powder; also helps maintain magnesium)
Alkalinity -- Seachem Reef Builder (powder; it's Reef BUILDER, not the Reef
BUFFER -- the packages look very similar and one could easily be confused for the other)
Salt -- Reef Crystals, however any good quality salt will work just as well or possibly better in any given tank
Vitamin supplement -- Selcon (used to soak foods or can be added directly to the tank as food for filter feeders)
I just recently started dosing phyotplankton into our tank, but it's too soon for me to make any realistic conclusions. Some of our corals seem to have responded positively to it and their growth appears to have accelerated, but it's just too early to tell for sure. Nonetheless, our reef tank ran over a year without phytoplankton just fine, with many of our soft corals growing fast enough to require fragging every 6 - 8 weeks.
Many people prefer to use a two-part liquid calcium / alklinity supplement instead of the powders, such as C-Balance or Kent Tech CB. Or, you can make your own DIY 2-part solution, with supplies to do so available here if you cannot find them locally.
The truth is that there is more than one way to do a reef tank right. We all develop our own tips and tricks, while still doing other things sucessfully that many would consider bad. For example, I don't aerate / mix newly mixed sw for 12 - 24 hours, yet many people consider mixing it that long important. I mix it for an hour or two with a small powerhead, then it gets stored for up to 2 weeks without any problems.
You may want to consider keeping a reef tank journal / log. It can easily be done in MS Excel or any other spreadsheet / database type software as well as on paper. Basically, I record everything that I do to our reef tank -- water changes, test results, amount and type of food fed, when the skimmer cup gets emptied, when I dose chemicals, etc. It might seem a bit overboard, but being detailed helps to decide what's working, what isn't, and where something went wrong.
Best of luck to you! Keep posting if you have more questions!
