first saltwater aquarium, weird 15g setup, many questions

It’s the one I use. I keep one near each heater in my tank (I have two heaters in my tank) and set the temp alarm to be just a couple degrees above my heater setting. Haven’t had an issue with it.
 
ohh i misread it. it does have a 0ppt mark, on the side marked with this symbol -> ‰

(we're using ppt to mean parts per thousand, right? when i look up anything ppt it gives me parts per trillion)

the side that starts at 1 marked with d 20/20 is specific gravity, and distilled water should be at 1. in the manual they have a diagram where both sides start at 0, so i was confused.
My bad, I typed parts per million, should he ppt or parts per thousand or salinity. Should be 0 with distilled or RODI water to calibrate.
 
FWIW, I typically used roughly 1/2 lb rock per gallon and that is usually roughly half ocean sourced live rock and roughly half dry rock. And I typically use less than 1/4lb live sand per gallon. No magic numbers and it's based on what I think looks good but leaves plenty of room for coral growth.
 
guys i called my water company, who directed me to call the city hall, who transferred me to someone else, who confirmed that we do, in fact, not use chloramine to treat our water 🔥🔥🔥

so yeah the rodi unit came in today! but it turns out that we have to replace the connection on the pipe i want to use before i can set it up. the previous owners seem to have glued a pipe tap inside it or something, and it's not coming out : P
also gotta find somewhere to mount it. i'm thinking of screwing a 2x4 to one of the studs above the utility sink and attaching it to that.

i can't get the tanks set up anyway because the sand and dry rock aren't here yet.
 
Good news on the Chloramine.

Can you post a picture of the pipe/pipe tap?

Yes, a simple 2x4 on the studs would work for mounting the RODI unit.
 
Good news on the Chloramine.

Can you post a picture of the pipe/pipe tap?

Yes, a simple 2x4 on the studs would work for mounting the RODI unit.
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it's really stuck in there. the valve itself starts to come off before this thing will even budge.

i don't think the included adapter would work, so we'd need some kind of new hardware anyway.
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idk why there's a random piece of wire dangling from the valve. there's actually a lot of random pieces of wire dangling from nails lol
 
That’s weird. The pipe tap looks like a plug. A pipe wrench on each side might help.

The copper wire makes me think someone was trying to ground electrical work?????
 
today update: got the thing mounted, picked up a standard faucet that fits the adapter (is it still called a faucet when it's... on the ceiling? it sounds wrong) but didn't put it on yet, as we have to shut off all water to the house before replacing it bc this pipe doesn't have its own shutoff. will do it tomorrow, when no one is home needing to use water. didn't want to just attach the rodi unit to the sink because i had to do a water change for my turtle (shown in my pfp! that's her! that's skipper!!!).

got bored enough to discover that i can attach the deionization cartridge to my arm like some kind of water purifying robot
(i am going to use it, but the carbon cartridge and then the membrane both have to be flushed with water before i attach it)
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according to package tracking, my rock and sand are in a city two hours south, so maybe they'll be here tomorrow 👀
also, i found a spare tube of holdfast epoxy stuff in my room, so maybe i can try to do some interesting stuff with the hardscape at no extra cost !
 
my dry rock just came in and i'm so excited! i have pieces that can fit together to form an arch, pieces with big nooks for critters to hang out in, and small pieces that can fit onto bigger pieces and make ledges!

it's all very dusty, though. i should probably rinse it off before trying to use the epoxy.
 
my dry rock just came in and i'm so excited! i have pieces that can fit together to form an arch, pieces with big nooks for critters to hang out in, and small pieces that can fit onto bigger pieces and make ledges!

it's all very dusty, though. i should probably rinse it off before trying to use the epoxy.
Very exciting. To me, nothing is more fun than an new tank build.

Yes, rinse the rock well and let dry before trying to aquascape.
 
i'm filling the tanks! the last bucket is in progress.
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i can't do the actual aquascaping yet, beyond adding the sand, because it's doing the sand thing and making the water too cloudy to see anything at all.

also the epoxy didn't really work out very well. it stuck to my fingers more than to the rock. the top of the small arch section has survived, and the keystone of the big arch is still attached on one side, so the halves can rest together in a semi-stable manner. i waited over an hour before handling any of my pieces, and at that point it's supposed to be ready to sand and stuff. it just let go from most of them. :(
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i followed the directions on the salt's packaging -half a cup per gallon, so 2.5 cups for a 5 gallon bucket, and then i put a powerhead in the bucket to mix it up until i couldn't feel any particles on the bottom- and i'm getting a specific gravity of 1.029? isn't that high? i even calculated the volume of the buckets at the exact point i'm filling them to, and if anything it should be low because it's slightly *more* than 5 gallons.

maybe it's because the water is cold, like 51f - i didn't see any reason to mess with heaters since there's no creatures yet.
 
Salt mixes vary, so from bag/bucket to bag/bucket it could be a bit different.
 
I forgot to add, I have both a powerhead and heater for my saltwater mixing container.
 
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