@#$^@$@# help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am not going to over stock my reef, salt water tanks are too touchy as it is, I was talking about my 100 gallon cichlid tank, which has only 3 more fish then it should, this has been fine for 3 years no casualties, as I do bi weekly water changes, I have to 100g rated Hob filters, and one canister rated for 100, all together moving 1500 gallons per hour. Couple that with circulators and airstones, and my waters O2 levels are very high, and my wate has never had any parameter issues, but again this is fresh water and it is much different

 

Well, like everything else in this hobby, there are ranges. It isn't like "this" is safe and "this" is instant death. But that does matter because just because someone says it's fine for their setup does not make it right for yours.

As far as your alk problem same thing... yes this number may be "bad" or on the high side of the range... but an alk number isn't as important as the alk "swing". If it's high, just let it come down from regular water changes. You never want to move alk either way abruptly. Bad things happen. I found Salifert to be very easy to use... can't really talk about accuracy cause I never had a bunch of different kits to cross check... but I would use the reference sample to see that my testing procedure was good.

 

i wouldn't say aggression has nothing to do with stocking levels at all...fish usually have certain territories in a tank and the higher the stocking the more likely other fish will be in each others territories causing aggression toward one another but im not discrediting compatibility just adding my two cents