steelerfan's 30 Gallon Breeder Journal/Build

ok, today makes the 1 month mark.

testing is:
ammonia-0
nitrite-0
nitrate-5
ph-7.8
phos-.25
alk/kh-6

my concern is the ph and alk, which was when i started the tank 8.2 and 9.

it is now 7.8 and 6.

i know alk dropping effects ph dropping, but what is the cause for the alk dropping?

i have not done a water change and water has been mixed since 1-31-10.

could the dropping of alk be because i have not done a water change to put the ingredients back into the tank with fresh salt?

i could use the seashem buffer i got but i don't feel that would be correcting anything if i need to.
 
The jumping part does concern me with the wrasse.

Can't recall, did you do a fuge with your AC110? Photosynthesis will vary pH too.

I would do a water change no doubt before I considered adding any type of a ph buffer. Really, you don't need to be adding any supplements at this point and you may never need to. Regular water changes with a good salt is all your tank needs when you are keeping tanks our size.

A 15-20% WC would be good to start.
 
greech said:
The jumping part does concern me with the wrasse.

Can't recall, did you do a fuge with your AC110? Photosynthesis will vary pH too.

I would do a water change no doubt before I considered adding any type of a ph buffer. Really, you don't need to be adding any supplements at this point and you may never need to. Regular water changes with a good salt is all your tank needs when you are keeping tanks our size.

A 15-20% WC would be good to start.
Click to expand...

yeah, that would be uncool to finally decide on a 3rd fish and have it jump.

all i got in the ac110 now is about 1 inch of prefilter to catch stuff and 1 cup carbon.

i have real polyfilter that i am gonna run after 1rst water change but wanted cycle to finish.

plan is to do a ball of cheato in the tank in back of rock hidden.

5 gallon weekly water changes with neo marine is the plan, but again was told to let cycle finish b4 a water change is done.

you think i should do a 5 gallon in next few days just to see if it raises the ph and alk?
 
After a month without a WC, and seeing you only have 5ppm nitrates I would say yes. I might go a little higher volume o the first change but no harm in seeing what a 5 gallon change does to your parameters.
 
greech said:
After a month without a WC, and seeing you only have 5ppm nitrates I would say yes. I might go a little higher volume o the first change but no harm in seeing what a 5 gallon change does to your parameters.
Click to expand...

ok first waterchange will be wednesday or thursday
 
so, since my sw had been mixed for the tank on 1-31-10 and my alk and ph had dropped to 6 and 7.8 and i had'nt done a water change, i decided to do a 5 gallon 1 today in hopes to see if those levels would respond even in the slightest to it.

i mixed ro/di water and salt for 6 hours and heated to 78.

i emptied my filter water, sloshed around my carbon and the bit of prefilter i had in there so it was clean.

then took a urkey baster out and blew all the rock with it.

wow, the junk that came of the rock surprised me.

i then vacuumed out the remaining water needed and tried to get as much of the stuff floating around as i could.

then added my freshly made saltwater to tank, cleaned up a tad.

my question,

i am not too concerned now as i have 0 life in there, but my tank has tons of junk floating around now and is really cloudy.

can and will this effect livestock when the time comes?

thanks for any opinions.
 
Happens with every water change but it will subside if you stick to regular WCs. Detritus accumulates fast in rocks but this will also subside some after you get the initial stuff out. What I do every WC is wipe the glass first, blow off the rocks (I now use the small pump I use to mix SW, works much better than the TB) and then siphon. By the time I get to siphon the water, most of the crud has fallen to the bottom and I just run the siphon over the sand. You'll probably want to clean out the AC filter completely once a month. Stuff will start to accumulate under the media rack and get spit out the output.

The detritus will not hurt your animals and the corals likely benefit a bit. As you stock your tank you may need to bump up the volume of your WCs closer to 15-20%. I did 5% for quite a while when I had my AC filter and when I bumped it to 15-20% I saw a significant difference in the health of my tank.

Speaking of I just got a 300gallon box of Brightwell salt! I won't have to buy salt for about 9 months. The box weighs 90lbs and was only $80! Love my LFS!
 
thanks greech,

i had pumps and everything on tank shut down when i blew all the crud off rocks.

is this correct, or should i have left stuff running?

i actually took the ac 110 off the day after i went and got a reading of sg 1.027 from my lfs.

i cleaned it completely and added just r/o water in hopes to lower sg a tad and kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

i will be doing that monthly as it was a mess.

i have around 37 pounds dry rock and 44 pounds of sand so i am guessing i have around 27 gallons of water in the tank, maybe less?

so i think the weekly 5 gallons puts me where i need to be.

wow, that's a steal as i see it regularly almost that much for 160 gallons.





greech said:
Happens with every water change but it will subside if you stick to regular WCs. Detritus accumulates fast in rocks but this will also subside some after you get the initial stuff out. What I do every WC is wipe the glass first, blow off the rocks (I now use the small pump I use to mix SW, works much better than the TB) and then siphon. By the time I get to siphon the water, most of the crud has fallen to the bottom and I just run the siphon over the sand. You'll probably want to clean out the AC filter completely once a month. Stuff will start to accumulate under the media rack and get spit out the output.

The detritus will not hurt your animals and the corals likely benefit a bit. As you stock your tank you may need to bump up the volume of your WCs closer to 15-20%. I did 5% for quite a while when I had my AC filter and when I bumped it to 15-20% I saw a significant difference in the health of my tank.

Speaking of I just got a 300gallon box of Brightwell salt! I won't have to buy salt for about 9 months. The box weighs 90lbs and was only $80! Love my LFS!
Click to expand...
 
Understood but I was doing 5 gallon WC's to start and bumped it to 10-13 gallons once the bioload started to add up. Just something I wanted to mention from my experience with a skimmerless system.

I shut everything down when I do the water change so I can siphon the crud off the bottom.

It was a great deal. He basically gave it to me for his costs since he hasn't been able to get in the 50gallon bags for over a month and I was just about out.
 
greech said:
Understood but I was doing 5 gallon WC's to start and bumped it to 10-13 gallons once the bioload started to add up. Just something I wanted to mention from my experience with a skimmerless system.

I shut everything down when I do the water change so I can siphon the crud off the bottom.

It was a great deal. He basically gave it to me for his costs since he hasn't been able to get in the 50gallon bags for over a month and I was just about out.
Click to expand...

yeah that's a great deal man. nice of him to do.

gotcha on the water changes.

i will keep an eye out, but the slow poke that i am that is way down the line :-)
 
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