Refractometer purchase was a great call. It measured my tap water at 1.000 and my tank water at 1.030 so salinity is definitely off.
What would it take to make this a SW tank? Am I ready to go down this road?
- Thread starter A. Nonymous
- Start date
Once again I feel like a moron. I'm not sure exactly how this thing is supposed to work. The instructions tell me how to adjust the air valve. When I do so I can go from tons of foam in the cup at the top to no water at all in said cup. I have no idea what the sweet spot is and the instructions don't make it clear.
Some peoples opinions vary on the skimmer settings, I dial mine in so it doesn't collect a lot of water but what it does collect is rather dark and takes a few days to fill the cup. You won't be able to really dial it in correctly until you have some stock in the tank but nothing wrong with running it now to break in the pump.
Well, I got my salinity down to 1.025. Then I find all kinds of varying opinions on what the right salinity for a SW tank should be. I really thought this would be a cut and dried answer, but apparently not. For a FOWLR tank w/a pair of clowns, is 1.025 too much? Should I water the tank down more?
1.025 would be fine, some people say lower salinity 1.020ish keeps away ich and parasites. I don't know how true that is, I run at 1.026 and knock on wood never had a case of ich in any of my SW tanks nor fish parasites.
Ok. Looking for a sanity check now to see what my next steps are. This is what I've got.
29g tank
350 gph HOB (soon to be replaced with a 300 gph Fluval 306 as the HOB sometimes decides it doesn't want to behave the right way)
700 GPH power head
Seaclone 100 protein skimmer
So that's the hardware side. My water parameters at present are:
1.025-1.026 SG. (It's sitting right on the cusp there)
PH ~8.2 (hard to tell on matching the color. Tempted to drop my PH meter in there, but it's on my FW tank and I have no idea how well it will work on SW)
Ammonia - 0.5 ppm (local water source uses chloramine)
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
So ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all where I would expect them to be on a tank with nothing in it. I'm looking for another sanity check. Am I missing anything at all? What is my next step? I don't want to screw this up before I get started?
29g tank
350 gph HOB (soon to be replaced with a 300 gph Fluval 306 as the HOB sometimes decides it doesn't want to behave the right way)
700 GPH power head
Seaclone 100 protein skimmer
So that's the hardware side. My water parameters at present are:
1.025-1.026 SG. (It's sitting right on the cusp there)
PH ~8.2 (hard to tell on matching the color. Tempted to drop my PH meter in there, but it's on my FW tank and I have no idea how well it will work on SW)
Ammonia - 0.5 ppm (local water source uses chloramine)
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
So ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are all where I would expect them to be on a tank with nothing in it. I'm looking for another sanity check. Am I missing anything at all? What is my next step? I don't want to screw this up before I get started?
1.020 isnt enough to prevent ich.
The difference in numbers is because fish can handle much lower levels then corals. So a FO can be kept on the lower end of saltwater.
The difference in numbers is because fish can handle much lower levels then corals. So a FO can be kept on the lower end of saltwater.
1.025 is just fine. People can and do run lower SG on FO/FOWLR but as khemul stated 1.019+ will not kill ich. A lot of people run it on the lower end to save salt mix/$.
Your levels are fine. Don't mess with pH. It will vary throughout the day and if you are at 8.2, your fine. Yo may swing 0.1 to 0.4 a day but you have plenty of room. Constant buffering pH will probably do more harm than good. Can't remember the last time I checked pH. Just use the powerhead to get some decent surface agitation and let the tank breath.
Seaclones are known to be difficult. Never owned one but most skimmers you'll want to leave the air valve wide open and the water height adjustment open as well. Let it run like that for a few days and slowly adjust the water level back up until you get a dark foam in the cup. There are mods out there on that skimmer.
Your levels are fine. Don't mess with pH. It will vary throughout the day and if you are at 8.2, your fine. Yo may swing 0.1 to 0.4 a day but you have plenty of room. Constant buffering pH will probably do more harm than good. Can't remember the last time I checked pH. Just use the powerhead to get some decent surface agitation and let the tank breath.
Seaclones are known to be difficult. Never owned one but most skimmers you'll want to leave the air valve wide open and the water height adjustment open as well. Let it run like that for a few days and slowly adjust the water level back up until you get a dark foam in the cup. There are mods out there on that skimmer.
