chemistry for pico tank question

im planning on building a pico tank doe zoas and cuc, i know what to do as of building the tank, but is magnesium, hardness and calcium inportant for softies?

if i only have zoas, will my NH, NO3, NO4, stay at 0ppm? thus not having to worry about algae and buying a cuc to combat the algae thus not having to worry about mg,dhk,ca,

or does Mg,dhk,Ca matter for zoas?

 

Some softies utilize Calcium and Magnesium. Zoanthids don't. The amount that you will need for other corals should be maintained just by water changes.

 

Agreed.

 

the nitrates and nitrites and such will not stay at 0 no matter what you have because even if you just have zoos they still eat and still poop (even if not visibly to us) and this will still decay hence your unwanted chems. i have a 3 gal pico with 12 species of zoos and pipe organ coral and yellow polyps and have algea on the sides but it dosent get bad to the extent you need a cuc i just take a new scotch brite pad and clean it but if it dose get bad enough for you to want to put a cuc in then just drain it (do it slowly so you dont stir up the sand (i used an airline hose)) place your coral in to the container you drained your water into then take it to the bathroom and give it a good scrub down with a new scotch brite pad then rinse tank sand and all in salt water ( i rinsed 3 or 4 times cause i have a 60 gal agro fowlr tank and just used water from it to rinse. the small size makes it super easy and it only took me like 15 mins to do the actual cleaning and like maybe an hour to 1.25 hours from start to finish. but anyway sorry got side tracked the point is theyre small enough to clean without haveing to put a cuc in