better water quality

parrotchute

parrotchute

DUSTOFF MEDEVAC
So, right now I'm still operating with a LR and DSB tank (no fuge, octo 800 skimmer). Levels are staying nice, but I'm striving for the "perfect" levels of water quality that some of you have. Any suggestions for improving the quality? (without doing a fuge, waiting til after my deployment to get a bigger stand so I can actually fit the fuge without major reconstruction)
 
once the DSB gets more mature itll do a better job, until then just keep up with regualr water changes, and maybe run a phospate reactor
 
But i want 0's! I'll let everything mature, not sure I want to spend $$ on a phosphate reactor yet tho.
Think more LR (or base rock to be seeded) would help too? (currently have about 20% of the tank volume as LR)
Alex
 
parrotchute said:
But i want 0's! I'll let everything mature, not sure I want to spend $$ on a phosphate reactor yet tho.
Think more LR (or base rock to be seeded) would help too? (currently have about 20% of the tank volume as LR)
Alex
Click to expand...

I'm not sure zero's all the time are possible. Zero's for ammonia and Nitrate are the primary target. Nitrates should stay under 20. Mine goes from 0 - .5 with a DSB.

By the way, good luck on deployment. Hope you have someone you can teach to take care of the tank while your gone.
 
Yeah, deployment's about a year out, so I've got plenty of time. My plan (right now) is to sell the fish back :frustrat: as well as some of the corals (depending on how much they grow)....
I have a few people with sw tanks who might be willing to take a fish or two and a coral or two and watch it - the problem is, I'm not so sure I trust them 100% to take good care of it. I'm going to have to shut the tank down during the deployment, since I'll be out of my apt and then when I get back I'll be buying a home.

Can you add too much LS or LR?
 
You just have to have enough room for your fish and corals. Figure 1 - 2 pounds per gallon. You can add more, but consider the fish you want to keep first. Some fish like more swimming room. Plus, rock can get expensive, even when using base rock.
 
yeah I've kind of lost track how many pounds I've put (buying piecemeal), but it's pretty close to 1.5 pounds/gal. No sump to put it in.
Just don't want to overdue it, ya know?
 
You've got to keep in mind,that it takes time for stuff to break down.It also takes time for the tank to mature enough to process stuff.
As long as your nitrates are under 20,your doing good,under 10 is awesome,not showing up on the test,well thats something that just takes time.
 
Ok, well, I've been getting .1 consistently for several months with no adverse effects (Marine Lab Test Kit). I just got a new test kit, suspecting something strange, and my API test kit reads 0 nitrites.
Kind of weird that there's that much difference between the two - what do you guys think about that?
 
I've seen stranger things happen with test kits.
I had a red sea calcium kit that said my calcium was right around 200ppm,no matter how much I dosed.Finally checked it againt an API kit that read at 550ppm.I've not used a red sea kit since.
 
I have an API calcium kit and now with the API master kit, I'm pretty happy with the brand - seems a lot simpler and easier to read than some other tests.
 
I use API for 90% of my testing.But I got Salifert kits for alk and cal,just in case something causes me to doubt the results.Only use Salifert for mag.
 

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