what test kits to use / coral dosing

[lemmiwinks]

i will be placing an order at www.seame.com/int tomorow for salifert test kits, but am unsure as to which ones are really necessary.

i intend on a low bioload (only a couple of fish. corals include BTA, Lobophytum, daisy coral etc. no acros.) this is what is in my shopping cart:



AMMONIA 7,00
NITRITE 6,00
CALCIUM 9,00
KH / ALK 5,00
MAGNESIUM 9,50
NITRATE 7,50
pH 5,00
PHOSPHATE 7,00
STRONTIUM 14,00

those are prices in euros, with free shipping. are they pretty good prices for salifert?

which are the less important ones that i could drop? i was thinking nitrites, phosphate and strongtium arent that important.. but despite much reading i dont really know for sure. what do you guys test for?


also, these are the two additives i am considering ordering for corals:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/oldskoolbreakz/maxicoral_top.jpg


Maxicoral A

Maxicoral A is the extra complete mineral blend for vibrant and healthy corals. It contains a strontium-barium complex to care for the corals.
Maxicoral A also contains Mg, Mn, Fe, Mo, Li, Rb, Cr, Co, Se, Cu, Zn, Ni and Sn. Multiple stabilized. Use with Maxicoral B. Maxicoral A is the extra complete mineral blend for vibrant and healthy corals. It contains a strontium-barium complex to care for the corals.
Maxicoral A also contains Mg, Mn, Fe, Mo, Li, Rb, Cr, Co, Se, Cu, Zn, Ni and Sn. Multiple stabilized. Use with Maxicoral B.



Maxicoral B

Maxicoral B is a fluorine-iodine blend for vibrant and colourful corals. Maxicoral B also contains bromine, potassium and boron. Multiple stabilized.
Use with Maxicoral A.



will this will be fine for the corals i intend on keeping?

[lemmiwinks]

i have just read through this very useful artical: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

and have dropped nitrites from the shopping cart. now also considering dropping strongtium, as water changes with salt water mixes is supposedly enough to keep strontium levels up.

also, not too sure about the maxi coral additives (as they are strongtium and iodine based which are not particularly important)


also i forgot to mention, i'll be keeping a bunch of corilimorphs in the tank also. in my old 4x2x2 i had these florishing all over the tank, cant remember exactly but i think i was dosing iodine which helped.. does this sound correct?

thanks for your help :D

[rwbogard]

[violation]

[Mike O'Brien]

You'll only need the ammonia if you want to monitor the cycle. Same with nitrite, useless after that. I'd keep the nitrate kit.

Yes on the Ca, KH and Mg.

I'd drop the pH and the Sr.

You might want the P kit.

[bertoni]

I am skeptical about additives like Maxi-Coral, since they are mixes of various elements, and we don't have good ways of testing the levels of many of them. I just stick to water changes, and dose only calcium and alkalinity regularly, along with magnesium as needed. Iron and silica can be useful, as well.

Most of the commercial two-parts seem to be fine. I used B-Ionic for years.