Well yea....no acclaimation to the other enviornment..... thats like taking a pacific islander and putting him in alaska in the dead of winter and wondering why he lost his tan! Lol.
Acans
- Thread starter 2pawsreefer
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Calibration is key. Some refractos can be calibrated with 0tds water.
Amen to this. I had the same issue my first 5 years of reefing with my trusted coral life hydrometer. My salinity was at 1.030 too lol. Another reason i lost a lot of coral. But couldnt figure out why my calcium was always at 500 and alk always at 10 or 11.
That was my stigma too! I always told myself....if it dies it wasnt right for my tank. Until i lost a $1500 chalice the size of a dinner plate i grew from one eye....Well survival of the fittest in my household then lol you can still see pigment loss
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2pawsreefer
Community Member
Well saltyreef iv held off on water change have 10 gallons mixed and on stand lol i can change water in one of the other 3 reef tanks i bought one tank off craigslist 4 months ago then made 2 more havent had as ny troubles really besides gha in craigslist tank lol
If I were you, I'd start off by making dead sure your refractometer is calibrated. Then, go ahead and run your full panel test for macros and nutrients.
Macros
Cal
Alk
Mag (least consumed)
Nutrients
Nitrate
Phosphate
Test your macros daily over the course if 5-7 days and then average your consumption.
(Example)
Monday calcium is @ 440 tuesday 420 wednesday 395 and so on....
You would see the decline in #s, add the differences up and divide them by the number of days you tested for to get your 5-7 day average consumption of that element.
Then, mix your 5 gallons of salt water, do a 5 gallon water change and measure parameters after it fully mixes in your tank.
This will tell you how much a 5 gallon water change is making your values swing.
For stability. Your numbers shouldnt differ too much day to day...when they do....that means your tank is unstable. This will help stabilize it among other things and help you keep coral long term based on parameters alone.
Nutrients can be pushed out to testing every week. These can be balanced with water changes and routine maintenance....filters and such. Some people even need to dose nutrients depending how their tank is set up and whats inside
Macros
Cal
Alk
Mag (least consumed)
Nutrients
Nitrate
Phosphate
Test your macros daily over the course if 5-7 days and then average your consumption.
(Example)
Monday calcium is @ 440 tuesday 420 wednesday 395 and so on....
You would see the decline in #s, add the differences up and divide them by the number of days you tested for to get your 5-7 day average consumption of that element.
Then, mix your 5 gallons of salt water, do a 5 gallon water change and measure parameters after it fully mixes in your tank.
This will tell you how much a 5 gallon water change is making your values swing.
For stability. Your numbers shouldnt differ too much day to day...when they do....that means your tank is unstable. This will help stabilize it among other things and help you keep coral long term based on parameters alone.
Nutrients can be pushed out to testing every week. These can be balanced with water changes and routine maintenance....filters and such. Some people even need to dose nutrients depending how their tank is set up and whats inside
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2pawsreefer
Community Member
Looking at my refractometer it has no brand on it lol (cant mean anything good) im sure its some point of sale amazon product should i just bite the bullet and buy calibration solution its only 7 or 8$
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2pawsreefer
Community Member
Any idea on what kinda little bug molts like this iv seen a few are they problematic
Hemmdog
10K Club member
Amphipod.Any idea on what kinda little bug molts like this iv seen a few are they problematic
Also don’t add stability with water changes. You only do that the first time you add water to the tank.
Yep, i had an aiptasia-eating filefish that went after my Duncan coral and a frogspawn. He got invited to live in the sump.
I was fixated on the back wall. Didnt see the pod on the front glass lol
BryanD
Active Member
Here it is
That's the same hydrometer I use, also from Amazon. Just a note, the metal pin holding the plastic cover on my first one broke due to rust, and my newer one is doing the same thing, I'm gonna try putting a little 3-in-1 oil on it to see if it stops it from overrusting and breaking like the first one did. But they both have worked well.
I also added a filefish to my DT but set up a new tank for my acans, lobo, and gorgonians just to be safe, looks like that was a good call. Its been in the DT for 2 weeks now, only thing it has picked at/eaten is the aptasia, hasn't messed with zoas, mushrooms, frogspawn, toadstool, or acropora. I also feed it Rod's, etc with my other fish. Trying to keep it hungry but not TO hungry, LOL, so once in awhile I feed flake which the filefish won't touch. Watched it go after an aptasia that was in among some zoas last night, didn't touch the zoas.
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2pawsreefer
Community Member
It says to to add with water changes and when adding new fish i dont see how too much bacteria could be a bad thing? But iv been wrong before
Instability of a home reef tank is so much more than unstable water parameter results.
My general rule of thumb for new tanks;
No coral gets placed until the successful growth of coraline algae, faster than it can be scraped it off the glass.
You have to spend the first 3-6 months battling algae issues and nutrient fluctuations that cause a slew of other things before you can really enjoy caring for coral. Most of the time placing a coral in enviornments like this will sustain growth short term but soon after the coral receeds or dies. Ive successfully grown coral in these enviornments early on in my reefing but this was with reactive plans to what i saw appear(example, dosing alk after seeing skeleton on LPS to bring the levels back up from the corals melting point. I undoubtedly believe that applying some of the fundimental knowledge i know today, the coral would have had a better life and might possibly still be alive.
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