Just set up my 1st saltwater tank a couple of weeks ago, on October 10th. Here's a pic:
It's a 5.5 gallon tank, with 2 pieces of live rock + live sand, purchased at my LFS. I have a HOB Marineland bio-wheel filter with a carbon cartridge, but no skimmer yet. The plan is for this to be a FOWLR tank, with a false percula, a neon blue goby & a little CUC.
I filled it with NSW (Catalina Water purchased from the LFS) instead of a mix, simply because it was easier. I set the temp at 78, did some ghost feeding & waited on test kits to show up in the mail. Originally the NSW had high salinity reading of about 1.026. My LFS keeps the fish tanks down around 1.020, so I reduced the salinity to about 1.021 (measured at the LFS with a refractometer) before adding the CUC. I also bought a hydrometer, and checked it at the LFS so I'd know where to be if I want to be close to their water.
About a week or so later, ammonia is reading 0, NH3 is reading almost 0, so I went to the store & got 3 small hermit crabs, 2 snails & a peppermint shrimp. The tank still looks pretty clean, so I've been feeding a small amount of thawed frozen brine shrimp every other day. No algae blooms yet.
For lighting I have a tiny LED strip with white lights that's been running 5 hours a day. I just bumped it up to 6 hours, but might look for a little more lighting this weekend so the snails have something to eat.
I've been pretty diligent about replacing evaporated water with RO, and I did a 10% water change last weekend. So today (Nov 1st) I tested everything with my new salifert test kits & here we are:
Temp: 78
Salinity: 1.021
pH: 8.0
Ammonia: <0.25
NO3: 2.5
KH: 10.9
It looks to me like my pH & KH are both high. Should I be concerned about this? I want to get things stable before I add a fish. If they're high, how should I go about lowering & stabilizing?
This is my practice tank before starting a real reef tank
Thanks in advance!
It's a 5.5 gallon tank, with 2 pieces of live rock + live sand, purchased at my LFS. I have a HOB Marineland bio-wheel filter with a carbon cartridge, but no skimmer yet. The plan is for this to be a FOWLR tank, with a false percula, a neon blue goby & a little CUC.
I filled it with NSW (Catalina Water purchased from the LFS) instead of a mix, simply because it was easier. I set the temp at 78, did some ghost feeding & waited on test kits to show up in the mail. Originally the NSW had high salinity reading of about 1.026. My LFS keeps the fish tanks down around 1.020, so I reduced the salinity to about 1.021 (measured at the LFS with a refractometer) before adding the CUC. I also bought a hydrometer, and checked it at the LFS so I'd know where to be if I want to be close to their water.
About a week or so later, ammonia is reading 0, NH3 is reading almost 0, so I went to the store & got 3 small hermit crabs, 2 snails & a peppermint shrimp. The tank still looks pretty clean, so I've been feeding a small amount of thawed frozen brine shrimp every other day. No algae blooms yet.
For lighting I have a tiny LED strip with white lights that's been running 5 hours a day. I just bumped it up to 6 hours, but might look for a little more lighting this weekend so the snails have something to eat.
I've been pretty diligent about replacing evaporated water with RO, and I did a 10% water change last weekend. So today (Nov 1st) I tested everything with my new salifert test kits & here we are:
Temp: 78
Salinity: 1.021
pH: 8.0
Ammonia: <0.25
NO3: 2.5
KH: 10.9
It looks to me like my pH & KH are both high. Should I be concerned about this? I want to get things stable before I add a fish. If they're high, how should I go about lowering & stabilizing?
This is my practice tank before starting a real reef tank
Thanks in advance!
