Randy’s 2-Part question

nwrogers

nwrogers

Got gorgs?
Does Randy’s 2-Part need to be stored in an airtight container like kalkwasser? I know he says that they can be stored in a glass or plastic containers and they will last indefinitely but I just want to make sure the container doesn’t need to be airtight. Thanks!
 
i dont think so, all of the people i have talked to use 1 gallon milk jugs....becareful mixing the dow flake, do it slowly or use a thick mixing bowl because it gets hot...chemical reaction in the water...
 
Cool, thanks! Also thanks for the warning about the dow flake. I am thinking of mixing up my first batch tonight!
 
Once you get your Cal > 380 and your alk > 7 you should be all set for it. You may want to check and make sure your nitrates and phosphate are low as well. SPS corals don't really like phosphates very much. Let me know when you are ready to give it a try...
 
nitrates are high. I will try to get them down with water changes. What would be an acceptable level?

Dave
 
Undetectable is best but there are people that keep SPS with levels of nitrates that are 10 â€"œ 30 ppm. I have read Phosphate is worse that nitrate but both ideally should be low if not undetectable. I know it is hard to do but I can offer some advice for getting it down quick and I know it works because I have done it before. Do a 95% water change! If done correctly it is safe for everything in the tank. You will have to make up a few garbage cans of water and get them to the right temperature and salinity. Drain the tank completely and fill it back up with the new water. If done right it will take 10 â€"œ 15 min. Use a pump rather than dumping buckets over the side of the tank and avoid causing a sand storm by aiming the water on a rock or something. No need to worry about biological filtration or anything like that, as long as you have some live rock in the system you shouldn’t cause an ammonia spike. Get yourself a mag pump, a bucket of salt, and some garbage cans and go for it. Also make sure to make the water up 24 hours in advance. If you don’t let the salt dissolve for 24 hours it could burn your fish’s scales. That’s just my opinion, do it at your own risk…
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9985374#post9985374 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nwrogers
Undetectable is best but there are people that keep SPS with levels of nitrates that are 10 â€"œ 30 ppm. I have read Phosphate is worse that nitrate but both ideally should be low if not undetectable. I know it is hard to do but I can offer some advice for getting it down quick and I know it works because I have done it before. Do a 95% water change! If done correctly it is safe for everything in the tank. You will have to make up a few garbage cans of water and get them to the right temperature and salinity. Drain the tank completely and fill it back up with the new water. If done right it will take 10 â€"œ 15 min. Use a pump rather than dumping buckets over the side of the tank and avoid causing a sand storm by aiming the water on a rock or something. No need to worry about biological filtration or anything like that, as long as you have some live rock in the system you shouldn’t cause an ammonia spike. Get yourself a mag pump, a bucket of salt, and some garbage cans and go for it. Also make sure to make the water up 24 hours in advance. If you don’t let the salt dissolve for 24 hours it could burn your fish’s scales. That’s just my opinion, do it at your own risk…
Click to expand...

Nate, right on the money with this advice!, in fact your corals will be fine even if it take s 30 -45 min....keep this in mind some reefs are exsposed to air for hours each day as the tide rolls in and out. So follow Nate's advice and it will help alot. Anthony Calfo dose not add any additives to his systems and he does 100% water changes every 7-10 days and he knows his stuff!.

Geo
 
Did a thirty gallon water change tonight. Nitrates are down to about 20 ppm. Water sat for 3 hrs. My usual is 6 to 8 hrs. Never seems to bother or stress the fish. I will do another one Thursday, maybe 20 gallons this time. I will let that water sit for 24 hrs. Don’t want to take any chances. Fatrip (Vince) is going to let me use his test kits to do a test and see about where I am with my parameters right now. I did add some calcium tonight that he was kind enough to give me. I will purchase test kits this week. I will dose accordingly to bring it up slow and keep track of other parameters in the mean time.

Dave
 
Cool, sounds good Dave. You will get it there soon I have a feeling. :) Also remember 2 30 gallon water changes do not equal a 60 gallon water change. A 60 gallon water change is much better than 2 thirty when trying to remove nitrates quickly. Do what you are comfortable with as it is most important to take your time and do it right/safely. Any amount of water changes will bring nitrates down with time. Good luck and remember the reef keeping motto…

In reef aquaria only bad things happen quickly
 
I did not know that about the water changes nate thank you. Last time i checked nitrates was right after the frag show. They were off the charts. I figured it was not good for the corals i purchased that day and have been doing 10 gallon water changes once a week sense then. I have not really checked nitrates untill last night and just assumed they where on still high. They are lower than i thought. As I said above 20 ppm. I'm happy about that. I will do another water change around friday or saturday. Maybe I'll try a bigger one then. Really looking foward to getting that coral. Thats my motovation at this point.

LOL nice motto and so so true.

Dave
 
Forgot to mention that i have crushed coral as substrate on both ends. Should i remove it? I know it a nitrate producer. If so how much should i remove, all or part. I'm sure its part of the bio system now.

Dave
 
Crushed coral…

Well ok here is my suggestion then. Before you go and buy a bunch of corals maybe it would be a good plan to convert this tank over to a full fledged reef first. I would do the following…

1. Make enough new water to totally replace the water you currently have.
2. Drain the water you have in to some buckets to hold the live rock and fish while you drain the tank and removed the crushed coral substrate.
3. Replace the substrate with some fine to medium grade aragonite based sand
4. Scrub the algae off your current live rock in some of the old tank water. DO NOT rinse with fresh water make sure to rinse with the old saltwater
5. Slowly pump/pour in the new water in the tank so as to not cause a sand storm and restack the live rock. (I like to use a shallow glass dish or bowl and pump the water into that. The water will overflow the shallow dish and will avoid causing a sand storm.)
6. But the fish and coral back in.

Here is the problem with crushed coral. Because of it size it traps fish poop and causes high nitrates, the crushed coral itself doesn’t cause nitrates it’s the poop it traps. IMO no amount of water changes is going to be able to remove all of the nitrates with the crushed coral still present. The reason I recommend draining the tank to remove the crushed coral is if you try to remove it with the tank still full you are going to release all of the bad stuff back into the tank. If you do that your nitrates will become sky high and the bad cycle continues. I know it sounds like a lot of work but I think it will save you a lot of work down the road. Also one thing to consider is if you wait to do this it will be much harder to do once your live rock is covered in corals. Right now seems like the best time. Once it is done you will have much cleaner water which is what you will need to keep any colorful SPS corals. Also don’t worry about the nitrifying bacteria in the crushed coral you should have plenty in your live rock.

BTW: Not sure if this helps but I went through the same problem you are going through now when I converted my 65 fish only to a mixed reef. I had crushed coral substrate and I could never get the nitrates below 20 until I removed the crushed coral and did a 100% water change. For what it is worth I pulled it off in an afternoon and I have been doing great with coral ever since…
 
Your right nate i am going to try and tackle this this weekend or next. I will get a rubbermaid tub this weekend big enough to hold at least half of the newly made water and one to hold rock, corals and fish. I will put rock in bare bottom and fill sand around it. Thats how i did it the first time. No dead zone's in sand they say. How deep should the sand bed be? I will be doing a refrugum sometime later after you help me and Vince do ours.

Dave
 
Oh forgot. What type of sand. I have heard of people using playsand. Would this work? If so what brand?

Dave
 
I'd image that a Shop-Vac would work pretty well... but I'd still remove the fish and some water first.
As far as sand goes, we used Kolorscape to make the rocks last weekend, and corect me if I'm wrong, but I thin zanclus and RyanM are using it in their tanks as well
 
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