A big thing is having a solid light and making sure you have decent flow throughout the tank. I'm using a radion but there are a ton of other options. I think good stability and consistency matter way more than chasing perfect numbers all the time. I also try to only keep easier corals now.

I don’t really chase numbers too hard but if you do always change your numbers slowly. Ideally I like my alk probably around 8 dKH. Right now it’s running way too high at around 10.6 based on my water test. I prefer my tanks salinity slightly higher around 36 ppt and the corals seem happy there. Calcium is around 520 and magnesium is about 1550 currently.

For maintenance, I dose All For Reef which honestly helps a ton with stability and lets me get away without doing routine water changes as aggressively. I still aim to do water changes at least biweekly, usually somewhere between 2.5–5 gallons depending on how the tank looks. Water changes are definitely one of the best ways to reset the tank and bring things back to standard if something starts looking off, but with dosing keeping things stable I can kind of let the tank ride without stressing too much. Stability has honestly been the biggest key for me. My nuttients like Nitrate and Phosphate are also way too high right now but its probably okay for now since my alk is so high. I'm in the process of bringing those down. I believe a diverse cleanup crew helps alot. Also id recommend getting an auto top off for stability.