[pineapple]

I've been using a very simple system for recording aquarium details: pencil and paper in the form of a journal and a set of tables in which items such as the following are recorded (not a complete list but to give an idea):

Date
Temperature
PH-test
GH/KH-test
NO3-test
PO4-test
Aeration-time-on/off
Lighting-time-on/off
Water-change-%
CO2-BPM
NO3-dose
PO4-dose
TMG-dose
Excel-dose
Algae-y/n-type
Notes

I usually complete one of these forms daily for each aquarium, not for tests which are more likely once a week or longer unless something is going awry, but always for doses to avoid missing one or double dosing.

The pencil and paper method is 'natural' and friendly. But I am not 100% averse to using technology and I was thinking of programming a simple database to receive the information. I noticed other people have done the same, such as the (Windows only) program available at this link. Using a database means you can easily produce a graph of dosing levels, test levels etc. Sometimes that might be useful.

I was wondering what other aquarists do with regard to recording tank data?

Andrew Cribb

 

[pineapple]

Great to hear all the ideas which seem to amount to paper or spreadsheet. I suppose with an aquarium that is going well, few notes apart from the dosing details are necessary. It's hard to record qualitative data on plant growth because one cannot measure or weigh them all the time. So that is out.

The data from aquariums that are suffering from algae or.... is much more interesting. One could learn from the various paremeters being recorded to remedy the problems.

Andrew Cribb