No ro to do a water change

A

Annie

Reefing newb
Hi all. I am a complete newbie to the saltwater aquarium hobby. I had to rush home to a sick family member the other day and have come back to a lump of rotting pellet food and some serious brown and green detritus everywhere. I am not able to get to my LFS to get some ro and was wondering if filtered tap water to remove chlorine etc will work as a temporary measure. I haven't yet tested the nitrates etc yet. There is also evidence that the hermits have shed their exoskeleton, possibly due to the water quality. How much of a change should I do and how often?

Hope someone can shed some light onto this as I am keen to make my aquarium a happy little place for all of my stock. Thanks in advance
 
Can you get to your local grocer, walmart, etc to get some jugs of distilled water? Filtered tap water from your sink tends to have too much junk in it and may do more harm than good.

Out of curiosity, where did the lump of pellet food come from?
Also, your tank can go for several days without being fed if it needs to. Just for future reference.
 
Hi I am sure I can source some distilled water from somewhere. Failing that I can make my own by boiling and cooling lots of water though buying it will be lots easier!

The pellet food came from my neighbour not listening to my instructions of one tiny pellet a day and small amount of live plankton. i quickly scooped out the lump of food! I usually feed a tiny bit of frozen brineshrimp in the evening when the night light is on along with a little bit of live plankton.
 
Hi I am sure I can source some distilled water from somewhere. Failing that I can make my own by boiling and cooling lots of water though buying it will be lots easier!

The pellet food came from my neighbour not listening to my instructions of one tiny pellet a day and small amount of live plankton. i quickly scooped out the lump of food! I usually feed a tiny bit of frozen brineshrimp in the evening when the night light is on along with a little bit of live plankton.
 
You should test your water parameters and see how things look. Decide how much to change out from there. I wouldn't do any more than 30% at a time.

Boiling water does not purify water. It just kills bacteria.
 
I'd plan on a 20% water change, check your levels, and siphon out as much of the detritous as you can, then do another 10-20% water change again in a few days if needed. Changing a higher percentage can be hard on your livestock, especially in smaller tanks. If you do a larger water change, then try to make sure your salinity and temperature are as close to your existing water as possible to minimize stress!
 
Thanks all. I will keep a close check on my parameters before i change it later this morning. What are your opinions on these biological aquarium cleaner liquids? useful to keep algae down or waste of money?
 
Waste of money and they can make the algae resistant and come back even stronger. Best bet to control algae is water changes with RO/Di, decent flow, decent clean up crew, and don't overfeed! Algae is also pretty common in new tanks and every tank goes through a diatom and hair algae phase. If you are having algae trouble, it would help us to know what type of algae, what you are feeding, what your parameters are, and what you have for a clean up crew - then we can give you advice more specific to your situation!
 
I have altered the flow so it is on maximum and the outlets are facing near the top of the water to increase oxygenation and other things. I feed small slithers of frozen brineshrimp with various added elements such as spirulina and garlic etc. I have one or two strands of hair algae and plenty of brown/green diatoms. The feather dusters have a small amount of algae on them but its not spread anywhere else. I have two hermits and two snails in my tank along with two feather dusters and a firecracker goby. I need to get more stock when payday arrives!

I only have testers for nitrate, phosphate and salinity. My salinity is 1.021, no3 is 5, po4 is 0.03.
 
Oh and the pellet food that my neighbour likes to throw masses in is the ocean nutrition formula one marine pellet. I find it doesn't dissolve that well though so I keep this for emergencies. I have a few corals in there too. A green toadstool, a brown and green zooanthid and a blue mushroom that has lodged itself on the bottom of my live rock.

Thanks in advance. Really appreciate it!
 
You really should be testing for a wide range, just not NO3/Salinity and Phos. I would also change the brine shrimp for mysis, and maybe feed less with the plankton. If you only have a few corals, you don't need to be feeding that much. Good luck!
 
Thanks I will get some mysis Friday when I go to the lfs. How much plankton do you think? I have reduced it to a little dribble once a day. my lfs recommended half a capful daily.
 
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I use a variety of foods, but it really depends on the amount of corals you have. If all you have is the toadstool and a couple zoa/shrooms once or twice a week is plenty.
 

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