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Home      Reply		Viewed: 380 -- Replies: 12
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Posted	my first tests
06-06-2006 00:01 by frozenball	as some of you know i have been setting up a new tank well i took the next step today and got my live rock which looks full of life already im seeing alot of fan worms ( or what looks like them im no expert ) also alot of polyps starting to open up now also with green centres , i have had problems with heat also recently and i have played with getting a chiller but after buying the rock ( all 40k ) im a bit broke now so will have to look at cheaper methods and i am also suffering with micro bubbles from my detec mce 600 skimmer atm , i just hpe they clear up . I done my first set of tests and just wanted to know your advice on the numbers ( all tests were done with salifert kits as i was told they are good ) temp 79.6 salt 1.025 ammonia 0 - 0.25 ph 8.3 - 8.4 nitrate 5 - 10 nitrite 0 - 0.1 phosphate 0.25 kh/alk 11.2 or alk4 calcium 445 magnesium 1410 do i need to do any other tests and which should i now check daily to watch the cycle happening
06-06-2006 10:10 by Penny1	every looks fine your kh is a little high but better that than low although i dont test for mag you just need to keep checking them when what fish are you going to get first aslo maybe get a bigger fan over the water might help also last summer our local fish dealer temp was running at 29 when i was worried about our temp and asked them about it
06-06-2006 12:09 by Alan	Kh is high but no problem some refers have it as high as 14 so don't worry reef crystals mixes to a high kh. Although not normally that high so I suspect my concerns regarding RO and the sand are correct basically the RO disolved some of your sand. Phosphate is of slight concern get some rowaphos in there asap before it builds up and causes unpleasant algae. Ammonia and nitrite will fall off rapidly so don't worry to much about this unless it starts to climb rapidly. I believe you can get an additional little gizmo for the deltec that helps get rid of the bubbles take a look on www.paraquatics.com and go on their online shop you should be able to find it on there. Also monitor nitrate to see if how effective the live rock is at total cycling my nitrate stays around the 2.5ppm mark and drops to 0.5ppm when I clean the sponges on a couple of power heads. The slight ammonia spike will be down to a minor die back on the live rock which will be down to the shipping as the rock is not shipped in water only wet in plastic in boxes. Be prepared to get some grazers shortly decide whether or not you wish to go for hermits or snails.
06-06-2006 18:35 by frozenball	test results today were 060606 time 1730 temp 80 ammonia 0 - 0.25 phosphate 0.1 - 0.25 nitrate 0.01 nitrite 0.25 some do seem to be dropping and i think the other levels are due to me stupidly washing my filter media and sand in tap watewr DUHHHH fill the tank with ro and then do that , what a plank . I am however very suprised at the groth rate on the polyps they have covered the first rock almost they are brown in colour with green like centres on them also there is a lot of fan worms developing now ( i think they are fan worms) they look like a hardish twig pointing out from the rock with a brown and white/cream stripes on them and there are also some white ones . I did see when i got up at 4am for work two very small white worms swimming in the water and cleaning the glass they were around 1/4mm in thicknness and around 7mm long. will get rowaphos the day after tomorrow because of the shifts i am on there is a place for it in my skimmer i was planning on getting 10 turbos , 10 nas and 10 cerith snails , 5 red leg hermits ( iwas told that they are the most snail friendly) 2 cleaner shrimp and 3 pepermints i was however going to leave the starfish as i want a blue cheek goby at some point and i belive he does the same job , does this sound ok thanks for all advice again
07-06-2006 08:28 by Alan	I wouldn't trust the hermits with the cerith or the nassarus snails I have hermits living in former snail homes of nas and cerith courtesy of my early exploits I have red blue and other reef safe hermits but I would not trust any of them with cerith and nas snails at all. Turbo wise you want something like 1 for every 2-3 gallons.
07-06-2006 21:33 by frozenball	ok thanks for that advice so im looking at around 40 turbs for a 400l tank is it ok adding all of the above in one go , will they have enough food or will i have to supliment them somthing . Need to get some good books now . todays tests 070606 1830 temp 80.6 ammonia 0 - 0.25 phosphate 0.1 - 0.25 nitrate 2 - 5 nitrite 0 - trace not sure if im reading the ammonia correct as there is no colour on the test card for a 0 reading only <0.25 is the lowest and its much like this just white no colouring to it at all also i think i must of misread the nitrate yesterday all test kits are salifert and well in date.Going to buy some rowaphos tommorow to eliminate the phosphate hopfully
08-06-2006 08:34 by Alan	A reading of <0.25 for ammonia is fine then I didn't realise it was the bottom of the scale. Equally nitrite being a trace is spot on to I assume this is at the bottom of the scale. Seems your tank is cycled. Are you getting any algae growth? Have you got 2 clip on desk fans blasting at the waters surface yet. I have just relocated my desk fan on my tank and yesterday the temp remained at 24 c despite the fact I have 2 150 watt metal halides. With 2 desk fans blasting at the waters surface you should be able to keep the temp down. The relocation of the fan on my tank has resulted in a drop of 4 c. The fans cost about a tenner from homebase.
08-06-2006 19:16 by frozenball	yes both on the bottom of the sale , yesterday there was only a very slight tinge to the colour not even the first reading wasnt sure what to put so i called it trace, yes there is what i think is hair algae looks like very fine grass , very green what are the best clean up crew for this please . no i am unable to put a fan on the surface as the lighting is attached to the lids which we have to leave closed anyway as we have small children in the house i have had a couple of thoughts about this one was to buy one of those portable cool boxes , the ones with the ciggy attachment drill two holes into it and run a stack of piping into it coiled up on the inside of the cool box and half fill it with water and have a good quality sump pump . pumping the water through the cool box .the only problem is that i think the temp will be very had to control as it will have to be controlled by flow . another was to buy a portable air con unit and direct it at the tank , not sure if it would work another was just to say *** it i will wait buying some of the stock i wanted to put into it and buy either a second hand chiller or a new one i have also seen beer chillers for sale but have no idea how they are converted for tank use . (now have rowaphos in the skimmer , its not cheap though ) todays tests 080606 1830 temp 81.8 ammonia <0.25 phosphate 0.1 nitrate 2 nitrite 0 no colour at all today thanks again for your help one of the bigest problems for a newbi to start this hobby is to have experianced advice . also i have identified 5 different colonys of button polyps 3 different types 2 different colonys of star polyps covering two of my rocks 3 feather dusters ( very shy if you go near the glass they shoot back into there holes) a large number of fan wormss all over the place i need to get next somthing to start munching on this algae now or this weekend
12-06-2006 09:02 by Alan	You need to decide whether or not you want hermits or snails. Whats the temp in Celcius I'm useless with farenheit none of it makes sense to me. Is there absolutely no way you can position a fan to blow cool air into the hood of the tank? This really is the cheapest way of doing it the other alternative as you say is a portable airconditioning unit at least with this it won't be just the tank getting the benefit but you and the family to. The other option on the particularly hot days I do this when the temp in my house hits over 26 C is to use the ice blocks you can get from supermarkets you know the blue things you put in a freezer bag if you go on a picnic or something like that to keep the food cool. These can be simply put in the tank and once defrosted rinsed and thrown back in the freezer or work out how much RO top up water you need a day and put it in tupperware pots and freeze it so when you top off at night chuck it all in making sure none of the ice sits against the glass this will bring the temp down a a couple of degrees this is normally sufficient to give the tank a bit of rest bite in the summer. Just as a side note the evaporative cooling only works well when the ambient temp is roughly the temp you are aiming for and the humidity isn't to bad unfortunately the humidity is quite high at the moment so evaporative cooling isn't working so well but within a couple of days the humidity should have dropped, just as a side note I got a smog warning today the first of 2006 I love working in London.
12-06-2006 13:50 by frozenball	thanks for info alan , i give up and bought a chiller and am now holding a cool 25 . our house is an old victorian style so the walls are so think that the room the tank is in hit 29 - 30 yesterday but that problem is solved . last couple of tests 090606 18.30 temp 81.8 ammonia <0.25 phosphate 0.1 nitrite 0 nitrate 0.1 100606 19.00 temp 80 ammonia <0.25 phosphate 0.03 - 0.1 nitrite 0 nitrate 0.1 added 10 turbos 5 red legs hermits 1 emerald crab all surived the trip and drip looped before they went into the tank took around 4 hrs to compleate but no deaths so it was worth the wait 110606 18.00 temp 78 ammonia <0.25 phosphate 0.03 - 0.1 nitrite 0 nitrate 0.1 ph 8.4 magnesium 1230 calcium 430 kh 8.6 / 3.09 water change next week and possible add some more clean up crew the next couple of days . Not sure how to get rid of that phosphate hopfully better tonight the rowaphose took it down a bit but not a total loss of phosphate . Brown algae appering as well now on the rock and on some of the equipment in the tank , hair line algae now around 5mm on two rocks only i also have other algae grwing with weired shape leaves . hitchhiker spotted last night but could only see his/her claws they looked simular to the emerald crab , flattened off at the end and it was feeding on algae . i hope its not bad
12-06-2006 15:03 by Alan	Just keep an eye on it you do from time to time get nasty hitch hikers so be prepared if necessary to set a trap for it.
12-06-2006 17:51 by frozenball	i was thinking just catch it a return it to my lfs as he has avalible space in sumps for muhhhhhahhhahhahh little nastys . as i would not want to kill it. Whats good to reduce the brown algea or is it just a phase the tank is going through . Also what the best thing to get my mag back to a good condition or will the water change aid in this thanks thanks
13-06-2006 09:26 by Alan	Water change will help to boost magnesium I use Seachems magnesium additive I have a very high consumption rate in my tank so I have to use 2 level table spoons a day to keep it around 1350 ppm ideally I would want it at 1500 ppm but stable is better than nothing. If you are in the south east you can get seachem stuff from World of Fishes in Felbridge East Grinstead the magnesium supplement costs about £15 for a medium sized tub that will last me anything upto 6 months so it is not overly expensive. The brown algae is a phase but it can be minimised by a large amount of grazers if I recall your tank is 150 gallons may be well off I reply to so many threads on here. Any way the ideal number of grazers for say a 100 gallon tank would be something like 50 turbos plus 30-40 reef safe hermits or if going for all out snails I would go for 50 turbos 20 nassarius snails and about 20 cerith snails as a starting point the nas and ceriths will keep the substrate spotless and turned over also the ceriths are very slow moves but they eat endlessly the fact they are so slow is probably why hermits like them so much as they are easy to catch. The nas snails are something else they fly around the tank. Sadly though hermit like to dig them up and eat them. Consider this number a rough guide it is really dependent on the growth rate of algae and the stocking levels in you tank you will probably find there are hundreds of snails appearing from the live rock this will help with grazing pressure to. Also consider adding some reef safe shrimps true peppermint shrimps are good this will also keep aiptasia at bay also try some cleaner shrimp both will readily breed in aquariums its unlikely any young will survive but the young do provide fantastic live food for fish. Particularly helpful with mandarins and anthias.

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