24g NC 1 year old

[okkiedokki]

I never really posted anything about my NC when I first started it, and now that a year has past, I thought I would share a few pictures.

My tank on 3/15/05

I ended up having to move my tank twice in the first year, once down the freeway to a new apartment, then the second time 100 miles from where I was living since I got a new job. This is the result of the second move on 12/19/05

It took me 6 weeks before I got the diatoms bloom gone; it seemed that one day they all just dissapeared. While my tank had the bloom, I increased the amount of water changes durring the week from 1 change to 2 changes.

Now my tank looks like this

I did notice, however, that I was still having to clean the walls from green algae a ton, so I decided to study the water that I was buying from the LFS. I bought a TDS meter on ebay and studied 2 LFS and then the grocery store's fresh ro/di water.

What I found out was one LFS had a TDS of their fresh ro/di water at 248ppm on average, the other had 112 ppm on average and the grocery store has consistenly read 5ppm for their RO only water. Now that I'm making my SW from the grocery store's water, my tank is a lot more clean, and my corals look better.

 

[dodo99]

Good thinking on the TDS meter. Very nice setup

 

[okkiedokki]

Thanks, now I just need to find a good salt. I'm using IO but I wanna try reef crystals.

my parameters have been:
ammonia, nitrite=0ppm
nitrate=20ppm
pH=8.2-8.4

I think the nitrates are at 20ppm because I was using the bad water from the LFS, now that I make my own from kroger I think it will start to go down. I'm looking into getting algone in there. I also only feed my 3 clowns 1/4 of a brine shrimp cube every other day. And I feed my open brain coral a small piece of krill once a week.

I calculated that it should take me 12 4g water changes outs to get my nitrates down to 5ppm assuming that the new water has 0ppm and I gain 0.1ppm per day from the livestock.

 

[CaveManNOhio]

The tank looks real good.
I should have you use your TDS meter on my RO/DI.

 

[okkiedokki]

Give me a call, we can test it, and if it comes up bad. Just let me know and I'll bring it with me and head over after work one day.

 

[msman825]

nice, oh yah thats a nice looking flowerpot coral alsoHEEHEE

 

[okkiedokki]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6987616#post6987616 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by msman825
nice, oh yah thats a nice looking flowerpot coral alsoHEEHEE

lol...I'm really tight with money so I can't really afford to try out frogspawn, or torch for my clowns, so for $0.50 I got my flower pot. The love it too. That and the hydor nozzel. They love to swim right at the current and get shot across the tank. Im planning of fraging the gsp and seeing if i can get it to grow over the flowerpot. I think it would look cool to have a flowerpot covered completely by a gsp.

I paid:
$7 for the GSP
$9 for the Kenya Tree
$0 for the Colt Coral
$0 for the yellow polyps
$5 for the Open Brain (won in a raffle)
$5 for the echino (i think that's what it is, won in a raffle)
$12ish for the mushroom (think i got ripped off for that)

 

[waverz]

What I found out was one LFS had a TDS of their fresh ro/di water at 248ppm on average, the other had 112 ppm on average and the grocery store has consistenly read 5ppm for their RO only water. Now that I'm making my SW from the grocery store's water, my tank is a lot more clean, and my corals look better.


***? RODI should be zero! RO at 5ppm is pretty good IMO.

Ide tell the ppl at your lfs they should check their RODI unit if they even have one....that rediculous!

 

[okkiedokki]

***? RODI should be zero! RO at 5ppm is pretty good IMO.

Ide tell the ppl at your lfs they should check their RODI unit if they even have one....that rediculous!

I asked both LFS's after I tested the water if the measured their TDS and one store (the one with the 248) didn't even know what a TDS meter was. The store manager even said after I explained what they are, told me, "wow that's interesting, we should look into getting one of them."

The other told me that they check the water once in a while to see if everything is ok. I feel safe with the grocery store's ro water, because I read that an acceptable range for RO only water is like 5-12ish. I should tell the stores but I doubt they will do anything about it.