stormy · the change log
New in reefnotes
What changed, when, in plain words. Newest first.
Today means today
The dashboard now counts calendar days: a test from this morning no longer reads “yesterday” in the evening. The water-change balance uses your fresh pre-change reading, the logbook only offers values for your water type, and too much copper now comes with what to do. Plus a few sentences that read better.
My products, tidied up
Your own bottles can now leave “My products” even when entries already use them. The new-product form fits on a phone, and where we don’t know a product for a value yet, you can add yours right there.
Advice that adds up
When reefnotes stops a bottle, it now only suggests replacements that don’t push the high value further, and says whether you add a new bottle or raise one you already dose. In salt water, big corrections for alkalinity, calcium and magnesium are spread over several days.
The chart opens on what’s urgent
When a value is critical, the chart now opens on that value instead of NO3. If you haven’t tested in a while, your values read “last readings” with their age instead of “current readings”.
One measure for the whole page
What's dangerous now comes first: critical values lead Today, with the next step. The tank page now takes its measure from the Today sheet: everything is as wide as the sheet, only the bookmarks stick out. The week now sits at the foot of the sheet. The header is tidied up: what your tank is about now sits in two lines under its name. Stormy and Manfred now whisper under the chart. Only when something is going on do they stand in front of it.
A reef for the reef
Marine and reef tanks without a photo of their own now show a reef instead of freshwater plants. And on a phone the brand field in the test form gets its own line instead of breaking off at "Brand (opt".
Setting up on a phone: straight to the fields
Setting up a new tank on a phone, you now see the fields on the first screen: the tank window is slimmer, and each step's explanation sits below the fields instead of above them.
Fresh pictures on the home page
“What it looks like inside” now shows the app as it looks today — and, new, how you log a test.
A closer look
The CSV import now reads decimal points right in semicolon files too — 0.1 used to become 1 there. After a measurement, every value outside your range counts. Stormy names the value and the tank that's off, and opens her note only when you click her. Sign-in and sign-up errors now speak your language.
Written on the line
Fields are now a writing line like in a logbook, no more boxes. What you pick gets circled, and buttons are stamps. On your phone everything is big enough for your thumb, the cells in the logbook too. Hints and errors now sit as a margin note, no more red box. And in the logbook a column no longer jumps open when you change a value.
Salt water gets dosed
Marine and reef tanks aren't fertilised, they're dosed — thanks for the tip from a reef keeper. They now get one "Dosing" entry instead of fertilizer and additive, and no plant fertilizer anywhere in their forms and plans.
The card reads the forecast
The line under a card now says what the forecast in Trends shows: no more "Above OK in ~35 days" when your water changes hold the value flat, and no "Stable" under a value that just jumped or sits outside its range.
Small truths
When even the best plan doesn't quite reach the range, the advice now says so instead of naming a date on which the value only dips in briefly. A young tank shows the days it has actually measured next to "in band", not always 90. If you join on a Sunday, you read that your first issue comes next Sunday, and the test form counts only the fields it shows.
My products
You can now add your own products — with the composition as the label states it, so the forecast counts them. When dosing, "My products" come first: your own and the ones you took from the catalog; the rest of the catalog is one click away. You manage the list in your profile. Salt water no longer offers freshwater conditioners.
After a water change, the next test counts
A value measured before a water change now says "before the change" on its card. Stormy and Manfred no longer say "a change would help" — the water change was the change — but tell you from when you can test again. And Manfred only points at suggestions when there are some.
Advice that fits your tank
For calcium, reefnotes used to recommend a nitrate fertilizer — litres of it in reef tanks. Now the app only names products that suit your water type, really supply the value and don't push another one out of its range. If it knows none, it says so. And a bottle you're told to halve for one value is no longer suggested to raise for another.
Advice and trends agree
The "Unexpected drop" box also showed when a value hadn't dropped at all (16 → 16), and for gaps no test kit can resolve — now only from a real step. "On track" no longer appears while a value above its range keeps climbing. And reefnotes only says "rising" when the forecast really leaves the range — not when your water changes hold it inside.
New guide: cloudy water
Milky, green, dusty or tea-coloured: the new guide to cloudy water shows which of the five usual causes you're looking at, how a glass of tank water gives it away, and what to do — or leave alone.
Sentences that add up
One water change "did its job", not "their"; one parameter that dropped is no longer counted as "1 parameters"; and a week with only doses no longer starts with "0 water changes". Under a steady value it now just says "No reason to step in."
Salinity and alkalinity, in German too
Marine and reef tanks read "Salinität" and "Alkalinität" in German now instead of "Salinity" and "Alk" — on the cards, in Trends, the logbook, the advice and the Sunday issue. English stays as it was.
Schedules keep their time
Since the clocks changed, scheduled water changes and doses sat an hour early in the calendar, and a slot just past midnight even landed on the day before. Now 18:00 stays 18:00 in winter too. Automatic dosers always ran at the right time.
Before on the left, after on the right
In the photo comparison, the newer picture sat over the older date. Now every photo sits over its own date: before on the left, after on the right.
What the change does
When you log a water change, you see where your values will land while you type the amount: before, after the change and your range. And the button to log it sits in the same place on every page.
Water type and CO₂ stay the way you set them
Saving a setting — a setup step, a dismissed hint, a chosen parameter — used to quietly reset a tank to freshwater without CO₂. Reef and marine tanks were then judged against freshwater ranges and got fertilizer advice that didn't fit. That's fixed. If your tank shows the wrong type, switch it once in the tank details — it stays that way now.
Edit values after saving
Mistyped a reading? Tap the pencil next to the entry in "Today": the test page opens with your values, and saving corrects that very entry — instead of deleting it and logging it again. During setup the test step points you to the logbook if you want to add older values. On a phone the source line stays readable, and your first Sunday issue starts with your first week.
Numbers that hold
A critical value now comes up in the test plan the next day — copper too, and after a water change as soon as the tank is mixed. If you test CO₂ directly, you see exactly that number instead of one worked out from pH and KH. Automatic dosers no longer show as "due" on the dashboard. The tour stays fully on screen, the logbook on a phone loads 25 entries at a time, and public tanks count their tests right.
Numbers, the same everywhere
Card, chart, logbook or Stormy: readings and ranges now look the same everywhere — with a decimal point in English and a comma in German.
Today on one sheet
"Today" is tidied up: one sheet with three margins — Open, Done, Later — and everything shows up once. A water change is one entry with everything that went with it and what it did to your values; open the table when you want it. What to measure today sits in one row, with the test plan folding open beneath it. And a one-off dose from the advice now sits where the work is. And the bookmarks on the edge turn the page for logging: the form lies on the sheet as the next page, the test form got shorter, and "Save" is always within reach.
Log care jobs — and when they had better wait
Cleaning the filter, vacuuming the gravel, wiping the glass, trimming plants: log it under "Care" now, on its own or along with a water change. reefnotes tells you when something had better wait — filter and gravel within a week take too many bacteria at once, and a cycling tank leaves both alone. Once you have your own rhythm, "Today" shows when a job is due again. After a filter or gravel clean the test plan suggests NH4 and NO2.
After the water change — what is still missing
After a water change reefnotes now does the arithmetic: where your values were before, after the change and now — measured once you test two hours after the change, otherwise calculated from the tap water and what you added. What you already gave is included. Only when a value falls out of your range does it say how much of your product brings it back in — KH-minus at most 1 °dKH a day, because of the pH. A reading right after the change no longer triggers a one-time dose, and for values without a range reefnotes reminds you to set one.
A water change and everything that goes with it
A water change rarely comes alone: the top-up dose, KH-minus for the tap water, a gravel vacuum. The water-change form now offers them right below the amount — prefilled with what you added after the last change, scaled to today's litres. One save logs everything. Dose later the same day and reefnotes asks whether it belongs to the water change; if it does, it doesn't count as the scheduled daily dose.
Import readings from a CSV
If you already keep a spreadsheet you no longer have to retype it: the logbook has "Import CSV" now. The file can come from your spreadsheet, from our template or from the reefnotes export. Columns are matched by name (NO3, nitrate, PO4, KH, Temp …), comma or semicolon, decimal comma or point, dates as 07.06.2026 or 2026-06-07. You see what was recognised before importing; entries that already exist at the same time are not created twice.
Tank page tidied
The album becomes a chapter of its own once the first photo is in; until then it waits as a row in the setup section. "Share this tank" sits there too now, folded, instead of being a block of its own. Values and trends get the room at the top of the page.
Calmer type
Headings and figures are smaller and no longer grow with the screen. Only the one number that says something stays big — the days since your last test, for instance.
The value cards show the real readings
The small line on every value card now draws your readings of the last 90 days, spaced in real time, over the target band as a soft stripe. Before, it showed the forecast curve. If you test rarely, it shows the last eight readings. Tapping a card still opens the value in the trend chart.
Signed in for a week
Signing in now lasts seven days instead of one hour and renews in the background while you keep using reefnotes. If it does run out in the middle of an entry, nothing is lost: after signing in you land back on the page you came from and the entry is sent again. "Stay logged in for 30 days" still means 30 days.
Readings are back on the trend chart
The trend chart shows every single reading as a dot on the line again, coloured by range, and values above or below your test kit's limit as a triangle. Since the redesign in May the dots had accidentally been invisible; only the tooltip still worked. The label of the newest reading also no longer covers its dot.
Where a reading comes from
When you log readings you can now say where they came from: an ICP lab analysis, a drop test, a photometer, test strips or a meter, plus the brand if you like. The source applies to the whole session, and single values can differ, for example when you titrate KH yourself next to an ICP analysis. The source of your last session is preselected. ICP values are marked in the logbook, in the trend chart (as a diamond) and on the value cards; every value's source shows in the trend chart's tooltip and the CSV export. The idea came from the community, thank you.
Manfred and Stormy everywhere
Wherever the app used to show only a spinner or a red message, Manfred and Stormy are there now: Manfred waits while the page loads, Stormy tells you when something goes wrong, with a button to try again, and when a tank is missing, Manfred helps look for it. Tick something off in "Today" or save a test, and the snail there visibly cheers. And when you unlock an achievement, Stormy celebrates.
Water changes in percent or litres, readings with a comparison
When you log a water change, you now choose whether to enter litres or percent. The app works out the other and remembers your choice. When you log readings, each field shows the last value, and as soon as you type, the change since then. Values the test plan doesn't need right now fold away under "Not needed this time". If you measure after a water change, that also covers anything the change barely moves, such as GH when your tap water is about as hard as the tank. And if you close the sheet for a moment to look something up, the values you typed are still there when you open it again.
Measure less: one test day a week
The test plan now puts due tests on the day before your scheduled water change instead of spreading them across the week. Anything due up to two days later comes forward to that test day. Calm in-band values due up to two days earlier wait for it. Values outside the band are never measured later because of this. GH and KH that have stayed the same for three tests are only asked for every four weeks. The test form shows how many values aren't needed this time.
Extra water changes, the app asks
When you log a water change or a dose close to a scheduled one, the app now asks: the scheduled one, or extra? An extra change no longer quietly ticks off the scheduled one. If the next one is due soon after, "Today" tells you that you can skip it, and if the change diluted your fertiliser values, how much to top up. Afterwards you only need to measure what the change actually moved. Older entries can be switched to "Was extra" in the calendar. Also, doses you log by hand no longer vanish into a doser's slot, readings from before the change no longer trigger a one-off dose, and a barely measurable change no longer counts as "rising".
The mass-balance line is now opt-in
The dotted mass-balance line in the trends chart only follows your plan: doses in, water changes out. Checked against real readings it does worse than the forecast on every value, often worse than “stays the same”. So it is now off by default and can be switched on under the chart with “mass balance” when you want to see what the plan alone would do. The forecast and its band stay as they are.
The forecast grades itself
The trends chapter now tells you how often your tank’s recent forecasts landed: “hit rate 6 of 8”, worked out from your own readings. “Look back” draws the old forecast cones as ghosts behind the real points, one dot per call: filled means hit, hollow means miss. Where the forecast does worse than “stays the same” on a value, the chart honestly shows only where it holds. The Sunday issue checks last week’s call against this week’s readings.
The test plan says when to test
After a break the app used to say a flat "then every 7 days". Now reefnotes works out, per value, when the next test is worth taking: when the forecast gets uncertain, when a value could reach the edge of its band, after a water change or a change to the dosing. "Today" lists what is due now, the full test plan with its reasons sits right below. If you test sometimes before and sometimes after the water change, the plan tells you why the forecast scatters. One tap sets the plan as your rhythm, and the Sunday issue carries it too.
See at a glance what it's about
Every message on the tank page now starts with a small icon for what it's about: nutrients, hardness, environment, nitrogen cycle or trace elements. Or what there is to do: test, dose, change water. The colour still says how urgent it is. In "Today" all times line up in one column. Automatic doses can no longer be ticked off or skipped, and a one-off dose is marked as one. In the history, Stormy only speaks up when there's a reading from this week.
Log without the jump
Measurement, water change, fertilizer and additive now open in a panel beside the tank (from the bottom on a phone) instead of jumping down the page. "Today" is the one list for the day: what's due, what's done, what's still unconfirmed. The week sits right under it, and every day shows with icons whether a water change, a test or a dose was or is due. The recommendations got more honest too: no false KH/GH need any more, and "more hints" no longer jumps.
Water-parameter chart as a PDF, new guide to Amazon tanks
The table with every ideal range now comes as a printable PDF too, on the "Water parameters" page next to the CSV file. New guide: water parameters for Amazon and South American tanks — blackwater, clearwater and whitewater, tank-bred or wild-caught, and how to keep soft water stable. The footer now lists the most-read pages, and the reading typeface loads much faster.
The rest in the new look, too
Sign-in, sign-up, the calculators, guides, water parameters, the FAQ and public tanks now look like the app: big headlines, fine rules, plenty of paper. Manfred and Stormy are everywhere, and the calculators put the result front and centre.
Contact form and a rewritten privacy policy
There is now a contact form, so you can write to us without an account. The privacy policy spells out exactly what reefnotes stores and for how long, and the imprint, privacy policy and terms are now available in English too. The visitor statistics no longer recognise signed-in accounts across devices, and you can switch them off for your browser on the privacy page. The one-time follow-up mail now has an unsubscribe link too.
Calculators corrected, target ranges retuned
The hardness converter showed magnesium about 19% too high, and the nitrogen-cycle simulator plotted nitrate as nitrate-nitrogen, roughly 4.4 times too low. Both are fixed. The CO₂ calculator now uses the same lines as the app (target 15–35 mg/L, critical from 40). Freshwater calcium now counts as in range at 20–80 mg/L instead of flagging ordinary tap water as "high". Copper warns from 0.01 mg/L, because shrimp are far more sensitive than the old line assumed. Iron and trace elements show enough decimals that small values no longer read as 0.
More security under the hood
We gave reefnotes a thorough security review and tightened a few things. A password-reset link now works only once. Uploaded photos are checked more strictly: only real JPEG, PNG and WebP images up to 40 megapixels go through. The timezone in your profile has to be a valid name like Europe/Berlin. And your public profile no longer gives away an internal number.
No more stale pages after an update
reefnotes now picks up new versions on its own, on the iPhone and as a home-screen app too. One last time after this update: close it once and open it again.
Fewer decimals in the Sunday issue
The Sunday issue now shows your values as precisely as the value cards in the app, without needless decimals. The change since last week matches the numbers you see.
The app, newly set
The app now looks like the home page: lots of paper, big numbers, fine lines instead of boxes. On your tank, "Today" comes first: everything that's off and everything due today — with "Done" right in the row and the log buttons beside it. Below, your values; anything off glows orange. You can tick off a recommendation — it only comes back with a new reading; advice based on weeks-old tests folds away. You can now drag and zoom your tank photo inside its frame. In the trend chart you switch values with one tap, and a break in testing shows as a gap up to today. The logbook shows the date and kind of every entry at a glance and fits a desktop screen without sideways scrolling, and setting up a new tank walks you through it step by step. And Manfred and Stormy now say what they think themselves — Manfred lies down on the number when the last test was too long ago, and Stormy points at the value that's out of line.
Milestones with pictures, mail in new clothes
Each of the 21 milestones now has its own picture: Manfred in a party hat for the first tank year, Stormy with a torch for two weeks in a row, and plenty in between. What you've earned glows in colour; what's still waiting sits beside it as a faint sketch. The Sunday issue and every other mail now look like the app too — paper, fine lines, big headings — and Manfred and Stormy read you the week over a coffee.
A new tank in five steps
Instead of one long form, Manfred and Stormy now walk you through it step by step: name and volume, water type, tap water, first reading, rhythm. Everything but name and volume can be skipped, and progress is saved on the tank — stop halfway and you pick up exactly there later. The demo tank is still around, as a link on the first step.
Your experience level now matters
The question “new to aquariums or years of tanks?” now has an effect: beginners start with ammonium and nitrite on their measurement list, pros with potassium, iron and chemical formulas. You can change it any time in your profile under “Experience”.
The demo tank is now Manfred’s tank
The example tank speaks your language: its name and schedules come in German or English, depending on where you create it. Once your own tank is set up, the last step offers to delete the demo tank — or keep it around to look things up.
A new home page, new snails
The home page is now a dive: you start at the water surface, where Manfred dozes on a leaf, and scroll through clear water down to the substrate — past three steps to your first tank, three looks inside the app and the questions that matter most. Manfred and Stormy are now with you across the whole app and show you, each with a face of their own, how your tank is doing: Stormy reaches for her magnifying glass when something looks odd, Manfred wears a medal when every value fits, and dozes off when the last test was too long ago. And Manfred finally has both antennae again.
The tank page grows with your data
A new tank now shows only what already exists: the header, one next step and the setup. The first reading brings Activity and Water parameters, the second brings the Trend, the first schedule retires the hint. Manfred and Stormy tell you in one line what comes next — the old three-step card is history. The page tour starts only once there is something to show.
Easier first entry, rename a tank from its title
The logbook now shows columns for the key values even on a brand-new tank, and “New entry” jumps straight into the first cell. The tank’s name and details are edited via the pencil next to the title from now on. Also: the Sunday issue waits until at least three readings exist, and anyone who never got to a first reading receives a follow-up mail that actually fits.
Only the values you actually measure
The measurement form now lists only the parameters you measure or have picked for this tank — a small starter set on a new tank instead of 14 empty fields. Everything else is one “+ Parameter” away, and the tank remembers your choice. The same goes for tap water and custom OK ranges. And a tank without a single reading no longer claims to be doing fine.
CO₂ table and every ideal range as a download
The CO₂ page now carries a KH × pH lookup table computed with the calculator's formula. The parameters index gained an introduction, and every ideal range for freshwater, marine and reef is downloadable as CSV.
Terms of use and plain words on privacy
reefnotes now has terms of use with a minimum age of 16. The landing page and the registration form say what happens with your data: hosted in Germany, no cookies, no third-party trackers, nothing sold. People who stopped using reefnotes get a single mail asking why.
The Sunday issue becomes a digest
The Sunday issue now opens with the two companions' verdict. After that comes only what moved, what's due and where a test is worth it. One button instead of many links. All mail now comes from hello@reefnotes.com.
Missed slots, stale readings, a faster start
A water change that wasn't ticked off now reads "missed" instead of quietly disappearing. Readings that haven't been taken in a while carry a "stale" mark. Weekly testers get copy that fits their rhythm. And after registering you're signed in right away; the link in the confirmation mail logs you in.
Dose amount right in the calendar
Every dosing occurrence in the calendar now shows the amount due that day. No more opening the task to check.
Sunday issue, album and what-if
The Sunday issue arrives: a weekly mail with everything that happened in your tanks, plus an archive in the app. Also new: the album as a photo timeline with before/after compare, what-if controls on the trend chart and the tank's identity card on its public page.
Want to see the next entries from the inside?