Marine Environment 2 part-Salt-3reef Forums

hoodoo · 10-08-2004, 02:49 AM

hi everyone,

I wanted to go get oceanic salt today for my new tank. Wasn't really sure which one to use and after reading the post about it I decided not get that one. I wanna get the Marine Environment 2 part since everyone seams to like it and it got good reviews.
I got 2 questions about it though. It sais there is a bottle with the trace elements (I hope I got that right). And something about rinsing the bottle. Does that mean that I always have to use the whole package at once?
the other one is the price. I could only find it on the aquacraft page for sale. It is kinda pricy. I mean, I would pay that, just wanted to ask you if you know another place to order it a little cheaper.

thanks, Yvonne

hoodoo · 10-08-2004, 03:27 AM

damn, I'm totally disoriented...
this hobby has one big negative aspect. I don't think there is any part of it, where there is a clear answer like "use this, it is the best" or "do this and everything will be all right".
No matter what you hear about anything in this hobby, you'll aways find someone saying the complete opposite ...

Craig Manoukian · 10-08-2004, 07:58 AM

Yvonne,

What I do is take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with hot water. I then add a whole 25 gallon bag of Marine Environment 2 Part salt and the bottle of trace elements. You mix this vigorousy and make a slurry.

When I do a water change I stir the slrry to make sure the salt is in solution, and add slurry until I get the desired specific gravity measuring with a refractometer.

I do a 5 gallon water change about every three to four weeks and just top off with fresh water daily as needed for evaporation. The costy is very reasonable to me as it is the stuff the fish live in 24/7.

HTH

Craig Manoukian · 10-08-2004, 08:15 AM

Yvonne part II,

Not all tanks are created equal and because of the variuos options it does seem very confusing. *Believe me *I felt your pain when I was a newbie.

I will only use an example with two setups that I am familiar with to hopefully give you an idea. *It will take research on your part as well as an understanding of your tank and it's particular dynamics. *You can take two identical setups with the same lighting, filtration, and livestock and they would not be equal in their behavior.

I have an 80 gallon display tank with a 30 gallon sump/refugium. *I have a 4" sand bed in the display and refugium with 125 lbs of live rock. *I have 20 times turnover in water circulation and a protien skimmer. *My lighting is two 175 watt 10,000k MH and 80 watts of actinics. *My sand bed is cleaned and stirred by an army of nassaurius snails, cleaner shrimp, scarlet hermits, cerith snails, and conches. I export nitrates and phosphetes by harvesting the caulerpa in my refugium.

I have soft corals and clams and eveything is doing well. *The little bit of nitrates in my system are perfect for the softies and clam. *I have a total of 9 reef fish all less than 6" in length.

This is not a very good system for SPS corals. SPs corals recieve the majority of the food from photosynthesis.

mojoreef has a 700 gallon bare bottom, no sand, tank that has tons of mechanical filtration that exports the unwanted Nitrates and Phosphates from his tank. *He has over a thousand lbs of live rock. *He runs several 400 watt 6,500k MH lights with actinic supplementation. *His tank is absolutely gorgeous, but is completely different from mine.

All this is really closer to what we see in the natural reef. *You will see large colonies of SPS corals in medium current on the outer shelf of the reef. *Softies and clams are found more in the sandy lagoonal settings. *This is just a brief primer about all the differen applications for different animals.

HTH

hoodoo · 10-08-2004, 08:35 AM

hm, you were supposed to help me, not make me more confused

Craig Manoukian · 10-08-2004, 09:23 AM

What kid of tank do you want and we can go from there? It's all good!

hoodoo · 10-08-2004, 09:33 AM

well, that's the thing, I'm not totally sure yet. I wanna do it slow and see, what exactly I want. But I have some basic ideas. first, I'm gonna have about 130 pounds of crushed coral and aragonite for the bottom.
I want to get a lot of life rock. REALLY a lot. you know, like in all those nice showtanks. (but add is slowly because it's a little expensive

I wanna start off simple with a few mushrooms, xenia and buttonpolys, stuff like that.
In fish I want to stay simple. A few gobies, one pair of black clownfish and a yellow tang...
At some point, when I'm sure my water and everything is fine (I'll take my time with that) I wanna get a little bit more into corals.

I'm not sure if I want to make a refugium, too. It might be fun, but I'm not sure yet.

Craig Manoukian · 10-08-2004, 10:08 AM

Let's start another thread in the newbie forum to discuss your set-up and not derail this salt thread anymore, my bad.

hoodoo · 10-08-2004, 10:09 AM

yeah, you're right, that doesn't belong here anymore.