gabrie30
03-03-2008, 1:06 AM
I wanted to give back a little bit, because this forum has helped me so much. I decided to start a blog with the intension of gathering information and also some of my own experience with SMS. I couldn't find many resources on SMS in general so starting one is...well a start. Here is the first entry of my blog that I plan to update daily. I wanted to post in a thread so people would become aware of it.
Today I decided to put new substrate in my tank. I decided to do SMS because of the price, look, and benefits for a planted tank. Theres not many resources on CA about SMS so I decided to make a blog about my experience with it. I'm not an expert by any means and am thankful for lots of the help I receive from others. I would like to thank Que personally with helping me with the project.
I am going to try as best I can to avoid "talking out my butt" like I said I am no expert. I will TRY not to make any claims that I have no knowledge of.
This is the before and after picture. Its still a little bit cloudy, the other photos I took did not want to upload. I will try again at another time.
This was Ques advice on how to approach this, which I followed closely...
"I am by no means an expert but I can tell you what I've experienced. If you have a Python gravel vac then you can get by with doing a good rinsing of the SMS and throw it in the tank. Fill your tank up and don't worry about what it looks like. Don't put anything in it for a few days. Do a 100% water change or as close as you can and when you do make sure you do a gravel vac. A lot of stuff will come out. Be sure not to vac with too much suction or the SMS will come out too. Fill up the tank and wait a few days. Vac as before and repeat this cycle about 5 or 6 times.
You may be wondering why. The SMS will drop the PH of the water if you have a PH of 8 right on down to 7 or less in just days. It will do this for months but it happens more quickly when the SMS is new. After it slows down dropping the PH then you just need to get into the 50% water change per week schedule and you should be able to get where your water changes keep the PH drop difference from being too wide for any fish to be happy with. I had my tank planted and aquascaped for a month and a half before I felt like putting some fish in and then they were fish I didn't care a whole lot about.
The name of the game here is watching the PH." -Que
Today I decided to put new substrate in my tank. I decided to do SMS because of the price, look, and benefits for a planted tank. Theres not many resources on CA about SMS so I decided to make a blog about my experience with it. I'm not an expert by any means and am thankful for lots of the help I receive from others. I would like to thank Que personally with helping me with the project.
I am going to try as best I can to avoid "talking out my butt" like I said I am no expert. I will TRY not to make any claims that I have no knowledge of.
This is the before and after picture. Its still a little bit cloudy, the other photos I took did not want to upload. I will try again at another time.
This was Ques advice on how to approach this, which I followed closely...
"I am by no means an expert but I can tell you what I've experienced. If you have a Python gravel vac then you can get by with doing a good rinsing of the SMS and throw it in the tank. Fill your tank up and don't worry about what it looks like. Don't put anything in it for a few days. Do a 100% water change or as close as you can and when you do make sure you do a gravel vac. A lot of stuff will come out. Be sure not to vac with too much suction or the SMS will come out too. Fill up the tank and wait a few days. Vac as before and repeat this cycle about 5 or 6 times.
You may be wondering why. The SMS will drop the PH of the water if you have a PH of 8 right on down to 7 or less in just days. It will do this for months but it happens more quickly when the SMS is new. After it slows down dropping the PH then you just need to get into the 50% water change per week schedule and you should be able to get where your water changes keep the PH drop difference from being too wide for any fish to be happy with. I had my tank planted and aquascaped for a month and a half before I felt like putting some fish in and then they were fish I didn't care a whole lot about.
The name of the game here is watching the PH." -Que