Water Paramaters

Discussion in 'New To The Hobby' started by Subrad5446, Oct 15, 2013.

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  1. Subrad5446

    Subrad5446 Plankton

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    Hi all. New to the forum. Have had freshwater tanks for years, and about 8 months ago made the dive to salt. Went head first and set up four.
    1 90 gallon long for reef
    1 94 corner bowfront for aggressive
    1 30 gallon half moon for seahorses
    129 gallon biocube for anenomes
    I haven't as yet needed any assistance outside what the lfs has given me, but recently I'm having a problem. Every single one of my tanks has nitrates through the roof, always, no matter what. Tanks were all cycled properly and have suffient filtration/live rock for biological filter. What confuses me is nothing ever dies. I'm always told I have horrible water parameters and need a change, I do, and the water chemistry stays poor. The question is, why is it so important to have good water quality if nothing is ever detrimented? Your talking a lot of work....a 20% change on each tank every week....
    Thanks for any suggestions in the right direction, and if I left out any info, please let me know.
     
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  3. Corailline

    Corailline Super Moderator

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    It is a dry heat, yeah right !

    Hi and welcome to 3reef.

    What are the values? Who is doing the testing and with what test kit? Do you have skimmers running? Big bioloads? Source of water? How often to you feed and how much?

    "why is it so important to have good water quality"?

    1. Elevated nitrates levels contribute to stress with leads to disease, examples being pop eye, symptomatic Cryptocaryans (marine ich) and whole host of bacterial infections.

    2. Promotes the growth of algae and inhibits the corals of corals at higher levels.
     
  4. oldfishkeeper

    oldfishkeeper Giant Squid

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    welcome to 3reef! A little more information would be helpful.....can you expound on what type of mechanical filtration you use? Fish can usually tolerate higher nitrates (within reason) but anemones and many corals do not fare so well. It would also help if you could give us the exact value you have on PO4, NO3, calcium, and alk.
     
  5. Subrad5446

    Subrad5446 Plankton

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    Sorry guys should have known better. I'll have to get up to the lfs and have them test it and give me the values. I never ask, I'm just told to do a "bigger than usual" water change. I can tell you its an API test kit, and that the color of the water red. I'm pretty sure it was a nitrate test.
    Didn't mean to sound ignorant with the "why is water quality so imporant" comment. I just meant you always hear anything over 20 ppm on nitrates is deadly, and I "consistantly" have way higher than that, yet I lose nothing, and everything APPEARS to be thriving.
    Answer to next question...
    90 reef-30 gallon sump live rock+these media balls I got from MACNA
    950 GPH Pump
    3 1000 GPH Powerheads
    ...I'm really sorry guys. I have to continue this later. I'm late to a birthday party and my girlfriend is standing here yelling at me. I'll return in a few to edit. Sorry!;D
     
  6. Subrad5446

    Subrad5446 Plankton

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    Sorry for the delay, super side tracked with life.....
    Ok, so back to the task at hand.
    All tanks but one are where they are supposed to be. I took the water samples to a different lfs and magically all is well...coincidence...I think not.
    As for the fourth, fish only tank, I have been fighting an ich ordeal. I've had freshwater for many years, so I THOUGHT I knew what I was dealing with. After much research and headaches, I've found I didn't. Quite the different beast. SO I have my fish in hyposalinity QT while my DT is fallow. Will post back when everything is resolved. Thanks!
     
  7. Corailline

    Corailline Super Moderator

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    It is a dry heat, yeah right !

    Sounds like you have a good handle on the situation. Remember going back up in SG must be done more slowly than going down. An SG of 1.008 is the target SG also.

    GL
     
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  9. Subrad5446

    Subrad5446 Plankton

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    Thanks for your advice. I was wondering for future reference, what would be a proper way reduce the salinity over a period of 48 hours? I couldn't find any documentation detailing it. Closest I found was this "http://www.reeftime.com/reef-articles/health-articles/treating-marine-ich-brooklynella-hyposalinty/19.htm" (you'll have to copy and paste...I don't know how to post links (wink wink)). It doesn't really detail they lowering process. In the week I was researching before making a move I came across an article that detailed however I was unable to find it again, and I forgot to book mark the page. SO what I did was set up the QT with half ro water and half display water. Then I dripped the fish over four hours. Was this correct? All my fish are fine in QT, but it's only been a day, plus I may just have been lucky. I have
    1 Undulated Trigger
    1 Humu Humu Trigger
    1 Six Line Grouper
    1 Valentine Puffer
    1 Porcupine Puffer
    I Medium Snowflake eel
    1 Sargeant Major
    In a 40 gallon breeder tank that used to be a sump. The baffles are black, and I use them to seperate the fish. The undulated is very mean sometimes, so I put him by himself. The eel can go over the baffles and go between the three sections, but this doesn't seem to matter.
    Raising the salinity I think would be simple....I cup of salt per 50 gallons raises salinity .01, correct?
     
  10. Subrad5446

    Subrad5446 Plankton

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  11. Subrad5446

    Subrad5446 Plankton

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  12. rcflyer1388

    rcflyer1388 Bubble Tip Anemone

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    if you want to raise salinity in the tank. the best method I used is topping off the tank with fresh made salt water mixed to about 1.018 until you get the tank to where you want it. then switch back to fresh water top offs for evaporation.