BryanCaruso
New member
Yeah I was wrong too I guess anyway nitrites were zero this morning. So I did my water change. I wasn't happy with all of that rubble in the mesh bag was too hard to get out anyway so I ended up draining the entire sump reserving some of the water in it. To just rinse the sponge and all of the rubble in. I couldn't believe how much crud was already in the bottom of the sump. I guess from the initial cloudiness of the sand. So I dumped the rest of the sump and rinsed in RO water and then i took water from the display and overflow section. I had about 30 gallons of saltwater mixed up already when I went to pump it back. I guess I took too much out as my return section wasn't full Even after the partial reserve water went back in the sump with the rinsed rubble( I was careful not to put all the crud back in) but something told me to not dump the last siphoned bucket so I added that to top it off and still wasn't full so I put in 2 gallons of fresh RoDi. I was really surprised how much that sump holds. long story short I put about 32 gallons of new water in my 67 gallon system. I didn't plan on that much but oh well. I retested an hour after I was done salinity 1.025 no ammonia, no nitrites, ph 8.2 and nitrates went from 20ppm to 5ppm. And after taking the advice last night my lights are on full schedule and I put the plug back in the collection cup on the skimmer so I am now fully operational 12 days. I would have to say smartstart does probably help speed up the cycle considerably.
