 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Pet Forum / Aquaria / Marine Reef / March 2005Water Quality Question
I have a 125 gallon tank, I am currently using ocean water from the bay near my house. For evaporation I use purified/filtered well water. Filter is a wet dry and a Magnum 350 canister, Magnum 250 for vaccumming substrate which is a crushed oyster shells 3" deep. I'm using Seachrem's Reef Fundamentals and Reef Complete supplments twice a week according to directions. My current readings are NH3 0.0 ppm No3 0.0 ppm No2 0.3 ppm Po4 0.0 ppm Fe 0.0 ppm both chelated and non-chelated PH 8.3 KH 125ppm CA 0.0 ppm or least it's not registering with a Hagen Master test Kit. What would be the best way to get the calcuim it up to 450-500 ppm and at what rate should I be increasing it? I going to convert from a fish only tank to reef. mark Williams  Signature¼á > What would be the best way to get the calcuim it up to 450-500 ppm > and at what rate should I be increasing it? I use Sea-Lab #28 Auto. Replenisher..you can get them at Fishsupply.com, I get them for a pretty good deal at my LFS. I've stopped using any other suppliments. I've been using them for about 6 months and everything is quite healthy. Just an idea. billy thanks billy, any specifics you can tell me on dosing rate etc from your experience? > thanks billy, any specifics you can tell me on dosing rate etc > from > your experience? The blocks are made to take the guesswork out. They dissolve based on natures need for balance. A tank your size would require about 3 blocks at a time. They maintain a CA of about 450, along with a number of other substances. yes was looking at that when I reviewed the fish supply.com link to sea-lab#28 . The dissolve rate or lasting power between adding new blocks averages what evry two weeks, three weeks, a month? > yes was looking at that when I reviewed the fish supply.com link to > sea-lab#28 . The dissolve rate or lasting power between adding new > blocks averages what evry two weeks, three weeks, a month? I have a 75 gallon, about 90 gallons total water volume. I use 2 blocks at a time, they last a bit less than 2 weeks. Depends completely on the needs of your individual system, and how fast it consumes the substances that he blocks replace. billy Hi Mark, It's not possible to have sea water with no CA, you don't mention the SP ? is there a river running into the bay nearby? if there is you could be collecting fresh water, but more than likely you have a bad test kit, you should not be reading any Nitrite either. You say your Nitrate is zero?, have you got an algae problem or is it anew tank? if it isn't a new tank with your filtration system you should have a fairly high nitrate reading, that type of filtration is a Nitrate factory in salt water. regards, unclenorm. as for the CA as I said either the test kit is bad as you mentioned or I did the test wrong, it said to add drops to a vile of water, which I did and then add the drops from the second bottle and I should get a pink color, then keep adding the second bottle drop by drop till water changes to blue, now I did see blue as soon as I added the drops from the second bottle after it turned pink I just didn't see it turn the whole vile blue only the drop changed as it touched the pink solution. So i may have read that test wrong and need to re-do either way. As to the water no it's not a river running into it, I am on the eastern shore of Virginia and get my water from chincoteague bay, which is full salt water, my salinity is 1.026 at 79 degrees F. I've been told that too about wet dry filters tend to be nitrate breeders, But i've had the system up and running for 4yrs here in Virginia, have a chocolate star fish, and four damsels along with 22lbs of live rock. but regardless of my tests I was looking for what is the best method to add calcuim, and what increaments it should be added at , don't want to shock the system. Unclenorm, I re-did the Ca test and had it confirmed by another person, we got the same results 120 ppm so now I need to bring it up to 400-450 ppm. As to the Nitrite at 0.03 I re-did that one as well it's 0.0 ppm You can buy various preparations to raise your Ca, the most common is to use lime water (kalkweiser) as top of, but do it slowly otherwise you get precipitation and other problems. I'm still puzzled at your lack of Nitrates, do you have a DSB or a well stocked refugium ? regards, Unclenorm > Unclenorm, > > I re-did the Ca test and had it confirmed by another person, we got the > same results 120 ppm so now I need to bring it up to 400-450 ppm. > > As to the Nitrite at 0.03 I re-did that one as well it's 0.0 ppm Unclenorm my basic set up is this. wet dry filter using a rio 3100 pump with a magnum 350 as the send pump both for filtering and water flow. Have a smaller rio powerhead attached to a undergravel filter plates. Basically a plenunum. the first layer of subtrate is your basic is onyx substrate gravel about 8lbs. Over this I have crushed clam/oyster shells and sand mix about 2" thick. also have a berlin protien skimmer. I also have sea gel carbon/phoguard in mesh bag in the wet dry and in the magnum 350. 22 pounds of figi live rock and as I said I'm running straight ocean water with only well water as my evaporation tap off. use reef fundamentals twice a week and use a magnum hot250 to vaccum subrate each week. I do a 20% water change once a month. Hi again Mark, I am surprised you have been able to maintain a fish only tank with the set up you describe, you don't have 'basically a plenunum', you have a normal under gravel filter, another nitrate factory!. A plenum is an space with no up pipe connection and very little if any water movement therefore deplete in oxygen. Your lack of nitrates is amazing with all these nitrate producing filtration systems you have, do you have a lot of algae by any chance ?. To convert to a successful reef tank you need to remove your currant methods of filtration, except the live rock which needs increasing to about 200lbs (1.5 to 2lbs per gallon) and protein skimmer if you have one, plus a deep sand bed about 6", this is best placed in a sump/refugium below the tank this has a lot of advantages, you can use less sand but still maintain 6"(needed to be affective in exporting unwanted excess nutrients), it increases your water volume always a good thing, the greater the volume the more stable your system will be, it will hide some of your equipment, protein skimmer. heater, reactors, etc. Water flow, you will need more water flow, the currant thinking on this is twenty times the tank volume per hour, with which ii agree and recommend. Water changes I don't agree with they destabilize a well set up and run tank for no reason, the only good I see them doing is replacing the consumed essential elements, its much easier and less stressful to just replace the essential elements which are readily available. regards, unclenorm Unclenorm, sorry for the late answer been busy, anot checking the group lately. yes I agree it's not a true plenum yet. I have some modifications planned as in redoing the undergravel filter plates, not happy with what I did originally so when i do that I will be adding more sand, although I was always told 3" of sand was sufficent, I could see the 6" being beneficial for some sand shifting and burrowing animals. yes the rock will be increased as well by about 100lbs. After I get it started again and see the numbers are right I at that time remove the tupe from the undergravel filter plates to let the dead water so to speak happen and get a true plenum. I've heard two stories with regard to water changes. 20% water changes using ocean water and even witht his method I've heard various reasonings for doing parcle water changes over a month to get 20% or do a full 20% all at once then as you said I've heard about not doing any water changes just evaporation top offs. As yo your question about alage I did have at first a problem with red slime alage out breaks originally, as it took along time for the tank to cycle but not since then. My guess is and mind you it's only a guess most people have problems with city water and then chemically treat it or R.O. to get it to a useable state which would cause issues with nitrite and nitrate but since I used well water, no city water around here! the well water maybe the factor as it maybe filtered naturally since the area is sandy with limestone and sandtone deposits making the well water not adding any nitrates or phosphates what would normally cause the wet dry and protein skimmer to be nitrate factories but as i said that would be a guess on my part. |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2009 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.