Lightning Bolt's 55g

[lightningbolt]

no, they told me not tu buy it because it was good, yesterday they told me to buy it but apparently the test they did yesterday weren't that succesfull. But they did another test and it appeared it was ok. The next thing on my Shopping Cart is a 1/10 Chiller. I saw 1 at $200, might be buying it once i have the money.

 

[Bifferwine]

Why do you need a chiller? Most people don't. Chillers don't work very well unless they can exhaust outside of the room. They transfer heat to the surrounding environment, which then heats up the tank more, which causes the chiller (and your home AC) to work harder. 99% of the people in this hobby don't need a chiller.

 

[lightningbolt]

I dont Live in USA. I live in a Tropic Island which temperatures get up to 90*F. That's why i want to buy a chiller, and also i dont have AC where my tank is. It's temperature is at 82*F because i have a Fan besides it.

 

[Bifferwine]

I live in Arizona where temperatures are currently in the 110 to 120 range. It's not cold everywhere in the US. :)

A tank's temp of 82 is fine, as long as it stays stable. Mine is always in the 80 to 84 range. If you use a clip-on fan to blow across the surface of the water, that can drop the tank's temps by up to 8 degrees. Try that first, before spending money on a chiller.

 

[lightningbolt]

do you have corals on your tank? im planning to buy corals and dont want them to die :/ thats why i was going to buy a chiller, but yeah teach me how not to spend too much money :D i have spent $1000 already in my tank :/

 

[Bifferwine]

I have tons of corals. Here is my tank. Temps in the low 80s are fine.

Left side:

Right side:

FTS:

 

[lightningbolt]

Nice tank you have :D i might buy the 6 fan thing from ebay :)

 

[Bifferwine]

Thank you. Try the fan before the chiller. It may help out.

 

[lightningbolt]

might buy the fan in like 2 weeks, I hope they work :D

 

[lightningbolt]

Bought a Royal Gramma & a Blue Chromis. Just waiting for them to come out and swim

 

[lightningbolt]

Royal Gramma's out, the Chromis is hiding i hope :( Will take the parameters tomorrow again cause i made another water change today to lower the salinity to 1.023, current temp: 80.9 with a 1200gph pump, a 260gph power head and the protein skimmer one, so i think i have a good temperature :D

 

[cageburn]

i love the full tank shot excellent rock work great job tank looks great!

 

[lightningbolt]

thanks :) Good News: Newest additions (royal gramma & blue/green reef chromis) ate :D first day in and eating already :)

 

[Bifferwine]

The salinity of natural sea water is 1.026. Why are you trying to lower it to 1.023? If it's anywhere between 1.023 and 1.026 you are fine.

 

[lightningbolt]

i meant to say that i made it to lower the salinity, LFS said that i had salinity over 1.033 and i made some water changes between tuesday and today so i can lower it a bit and ended up with 1.023

 

[Bifferwine]

Ahhhh okay. I understand. Sorry. :)

You need to get your own refractometer or hydrometer to measure the salinity yourself. That is something that is very important... Have you been topping off with fresh water? When water evaporates, it leaves the salt behind. So when you add water to your tank to compensate for the evaporation, you must add fresh water, not salt water. Only add salt water when you remove salt water during a water change.

You also don't want to change your salinity that quickly. A drop from 1.033 to 1.023 from a water change is very drastic and can kill your tank inhabitants. If you need to raise or lower your salinity, do it gradually over a period of a week or so.

 

[lightningbolt]

i have the hydrometer but it appeared it was damaged but i bought a new one, and i changed the salinity over a period of 3 days, would that hit them too or not that much?

 

[Bifferwine]

I think over 3 days will probably be fine. You may want to look into getting a refractometer. They cost about $40 (at least here in the continental US). You have to replace hydrometers every 6 months or so, because they go bad and start giving you false readings. Refractometers are much more accurate and don't need to be replaced.

 

[lightningbolt]

great advise ;) im also on to buy a reef test kit that comes with calcium, phosphate and iodine tests, i only have the Nitrites Nitrates pH and Ammonia tests

 

[Bifferwine]

Yeah, you have the basic ones you need. Phosphate kits are useless though -- algae uses up phosphate as quickly as it's produced, so you can get a reading that says 0, when you actually do have a phosphate problem.

Calcium is important if you have corals. If you don't have corals, you don't need to test for calcium. I can't think of too many people that test for iodine. That test isn't necessary for most tanks, IMO.

If you are going to get more test kits, alkalinity is more important than all the ones you mentioned.