Bifferwine
I am a girl
You can do your first water change once the tank's done cycling. You'll only know this by testing for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. A cycle usually takes around 3 weeks or more.
Do I need a heater for my 8 gal tank?
- Thread starter simplystephanie
- Start date
You can do your first water change once the tank's done cycling. You'll only know this by testing for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. A cycle usually takes around 3 weeks or more.
simplystephanie
Reefing newb
you're so knowledgeable on everything saltwater!!! thank you soooooo much for all of your wonderful advice :)
KidJ57
Struggling Reef Addict
There are a couple of tricks to making it easy, it just depends on your tank set-up. Personally (I actually have a lesser set-up compared to these other guys), I have a cannister filter with easy release hoses (hose attachment serves as a shut-off valve also); so all I have to do is disconnect the hoses from the filter body then drain the water into a bucket and reconnect when I'm done JBJ-USA Aquarium Products . Super easy! Then I just pour in my new saltwater from the LFS. For people who can't pour a 5 gallon jug all to evenly, they have these micro-blowers that can fit into a jug and pump the water into the tank straight from the jug.
For you, since you only have an 8 gallon tank, you won't have to swap more than a gallon as, typically, when you do a water change, you should only be swapping out 10-15% of your actual water volume, and that's less than 8 gallons. 8 gallons is how much water could fit in your tank if it was empty, but when you add sand, rock, and whatever else, that number goes down a bit. If you have something with your tank that is already moving water out of the tank than can easily be interupted, you could probably cut the top off a 1-gallon milk container or something, leaving the handle, and pour your water into that; the handle would make it easy to pour out and cutting the top off should make it easy to pour into and limits you from filling up a whole gallon of water. Even better would be to get three 1 gallon R/O water jugs, cut the top off of one and mark it with a line to wear you can fill it and comfortable transport it. Then, mark the same line across the other two bottles but keep one for fresh water (evaporation refill) and one for salt water.
....I need to stop writing so much :frustrat: "Hi, I'm Jason, and I'm a word-a-holic..."
project5k
Reef enthusiast
its good information, but yea, that one did stink of "Diarrhea of the Keyboard" and yes, i'm guilty of it too...
:D
:D
simplystephanie
Reefing newb
The more information, the better.. especially for beginners like me. :)
