Rubbermaid tote for make up water

[tcollins]

I've been fighting a minor hair algae problem for quite a while, have been running GFO and doing weekly water changes for a couple of months. First a little about my tank, just starting over, cooked the rock for a couple of months and only have about 10 - 15 Astrea and Narcissus snails. Tanks been running for about two months. Haven't been feeding since I set up as the snails seem happy on the rock. Only clean the glass once every 10 days or so.

When I test the tank water the readings are always zero, testing with both Sailfert and Sera. I knew two things were going on, first, neither test was accurate to the level necessary to actually determine how much phosphate I was fighting, and second, whatever phosphate was in the tank was bound up in the algae and what was left in the cooked rock. Still, I thought if I just kept up with the weekly regimen, I would persevere.

I've always used a 35 gallon rubbermaid tote to mix up and heat SW for water changes. Water's been circulating for about two days, getting ready for today's water change. I thought I'd check it this morning, to verify that it was not a source of phosphate and surprise, both tests are showing 0.25 phos readings!!!

Now I have to find a large food grade, covered tub/container to use. I live in an apartment and this sits under my kitchen table, adjacent to a common wall, the other side being were the tank sits, so I do have some size restrictions.

I'm wondering what others are using, besides brute tash containers? Thanks!!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I do not think it is likely that the phosphate, even if real (and I'm skeptical), in that top off water is a big concern, or the cause of algae problems.

You add way way more than that amount of phosphate with each feeding.

People focus on all sorts of phosphate sources, but the most important one is nearly always fish foods. They ALL necessarily have a lot of phosphate.

 

[tcollins]

Randy, I'm not feeding and the water I tested that had the phosphate was in the two day old saltwater I mixed up, that had been circulating in the rubber maid tote. If not from the tote, I've read your thoughts on chemicals leaching from these, do you think it could be in my public water source? I use a Filter Guy's five stage RO/DI and changed the filters/DI about a month and a half ago.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

OK.

There may be something from the tote (especially if not cleaned), could be from the salt mix, or from the fresh water.

If the TDS is 0 ppm, then the source water is probably OK, but if the TDS is above that, then it may be from the fresh water.

Try measuring that for both TDS and phosphate.

 

[tcollins]

Tested the RO/DI and it came back 0.0 for phos, very glad to know this. So this leaves the salt mix or the tote. To test the salt mix, I'm going to make up a gallon of SW and test that. Not sure if I have a ceramic/glass vessell large enough to do this, if not, I'll buy a gallon of distilled water, flush it well with RO/DI and use that. I am and have been using Coral Reef salt, while Billy's thread didn't show any phos when he tested his, things do change for manufactuers.

If the salt tests ok, it's either my cleaning of the tote or the tote itself. I normally clean the tote about every third water change and while I had just cleaned the tote before this episode but may be it wasn't thorough enough. To clean the tote, I rinse with regular tap water, scrub, repeat and let it drain out to almost dry, then paper towel it dry. Next I wipe the inside down with a liberal amount of vinegar, rinse with RO water, dry and hook up to the RO/DI to fill.

Now I need to find a new storage/mix container and am reading the threads on either polypropolene or the HDLE (?) food grade one. Looking for idea's and sources, thanks!!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

When you say tote, what exactly is it?