Gary Majchrzak
Team RC
a thread to live vicariously through!
Nuthin' more boring than a water change, right?
I'd rather watch paint dry.
Okay... maybe not for some.
People are always asking questions about saltmixes and water changes. Others that been doing it for years and might want to review their techniques and who knows... maybe I'll learn something here!
Anyways, it's already begun. I starting prepping my new artificial seawater Friday afternoon.
Prepping ASW is a very important step:
if the salt is packaged in a larger batch than you plan on using in one preparation/water change you should make sure it's thorougly stirred up (dry) to ensure uniformity of product. This is important as (despite manufacturer claims) a settling of contents can occur.
Always note the manufacturer recommendations printed on the packaging for concentrations. Almost all salt manufacturers have instructions printed out that tell you how many gallons the product inside the container is designed to mix up at various concentrations.
It's a common mistake for someone to use one 50 gallon bag of saltmix and post that calcium levels are low only to find out they've mixed it to S.G. 1.02
For a reef aquarium we want S.G. @ 1.025- 1.026 and you shouldn't test for calcium, Mg or alkalinity until a S.G. of 1.026 is acheived.
You should use an accurate device to measure S.G./salinity. A calibrated refractometer or 16" floating glass hydrometer (corrected for temperature) are among the average hobbyists best choices. Swing arm hydrometers should be avoided because of their known shortcomings.
Always add saltmix slowly to aerating freshwater. Bring up to proper S.G. and temperature. Mix for 24 hours. For this particular water change I'm using Instant Ocean. It was sold in a box. Boxes contain 4 bags of mix. Bags in boxes are stamped with batch numbers. Test results for this batch are known and they're pretty good- the only thing I need to boost today is magnesium (Mg) and that's easily accomplished using Randy's recipe for Mg supplementation (a combo of magnesium chloride and magnesium sulfate).
Before starting the water change I feed my reef aquarium rather heavily. I started these heavier than normal feedings yesterday and have continued it with a nocturnal feeding earlier this morning followed by another heavy feeding once the aquarium lights came on about an hour ago.
It's now time to start removing old water from the system.
I use a wet skim method of removing water from the system. It's a slow way of removing old tankwater and (IME) the slower the better!
I'm going to raise the water level in my skimmer right up to the edge of the neck so that any and all skimmate foam will overflow into the collection cup. Skimmate will look like weak green tea.
My skimmer is in the basement and it's going to get really stinky down there in a minute :spin3:
Nuthin' more boring than a water change, right?
I'd rather watch paint dry.
Okay... maybe not for some.
People are always asking questions about saltmixes and water changes. Others that been doing it for years and might want to review their techniques and who knows... maybe I'll learn something here!
Anyways, it's already begun. I starting prepping my new artificial seawater Friday afternoon.
Prepping ASW is a very important step:
if the salt is packaged in a larger batch than you plan on using in one preparation/water change you should make sure it's thorougly stirred up (dry) to ensure uniformity of product. This is important as (despite manufacturer claims) a settling of contents can occur.
Always note the manufacturer recommendations printed on the packaging for concentrations. Almost all salt manufacturers have instructions printed out that tell you how many gallons the product inside the container is designed to mix up at various concentrations.
It's a common mistake for someone to use one 50 gallon bag of saltmix and post that calcium levels are low only to find out they've mixed it to S.G. 1.02
For a reef aquarium we want S.G. @ 1.025- 1.026 and you shouldn't test for calcium, Mg or alkalinity until a S.G. of 1.026 is acheived.
You should use an accurate device to measure S.G./salinity. A calibrated refractometer or 16" floating glass hydrometer (corrected for temperature) are among the average hobbyists best choices. Swing arm hydrometers should be avoided because of their known shortcomings.
Always add saltmix slowly to aerating freshwater. Bring up to proper S.G. and temperature. Mix for 24 hours. For this particular water change I'm using Instant Ocean. It was sold in a box. Boxes contain 4 bags of mix. Bags in boxes are stamped with batch numbers. Test results for this batch are known and they're pretty good- the only thing I need to boost today is magnesium (Mg) and that's easily accomplished using Randy's recipe for Mg supplementation (a combo of magnesium chloride and magnesium sulfate).
Before starting the water change I feed my reef aquarium rather heavily. I started these heavier than normal feedings yesterday and have continued it with a nocturnal feeding earlier this morning followed by another heavy feeding once the aquarium lights came on about an hour ago.
It's now time to start removing old water from the system.
I use a wet skim method of removing water from the system. It's a slow way of removing old tankwater and (IME) the slower the better!
I'm going to raise the water level in my skimmer right up to the edge of the neck so that any and all skimmate foam will overflow into the collection cup. Skimmate will look like weak green tea.
My skimmer is in the basement and it's going to get really stinky down there in a minute :spin3:
