nothingfishy
New member
Hello all. I have been in and out of the hobby since the late 90s. I feel I have a very good understanding about methodologies and procedures, but lack confidence with certain topics.
For instance, there are several places, publications, forum posts, etc that post numbers for parameters. Ideally, you would like your tank to resemble these numbers as well, but at what expense?
I have a 155 that I have has since 99, and about a year ago had one fish. I went away to college prior to that, and slowly lost interest. Upon return, I wanted to get back into it. At one point my trates had to be in the 400. My crushed coral looked more like mud than anything, and my oh was around 7.5.
Rather than work with this mess, I decided to completely start over. I drained the tank, removed all sand, refilled tank with freshwater, bleached, and let it dry before recycling.
This was in august, and I have slowly added fish to where I am 5 months later. Right now I have a 7 inch blue angel, 4 inch asfur, 4 inch gray, 8 inch guinea fowl puffer, 5 inch green bird wrasse, 4 inch aussie tusk, 3 inch foxface, 7 inch sailfin tang, 3 inch achilles, 3 inch hippo, and a 6 inch volitan. I have a 300 gallon in my garage I am building a stand for, and will have tank up and running by summer.
With that said, my numbers are far from what I have read they should be. Before I say what they are , these Are tank specs:
155 gal, 20 more in the sump=175~
Weighed live rock dry: 115 lbs (started as dead Fiji and tonga)
1 inch reef grade sand on bottom,
Sro 3000 skimmer, bio pellet reactor using ecobak.
Two return pumps delivering about 1200 gallons an hour (6.8 turns an hour thru sump)
One maxspext rip tide (up to 5000 gallons hour, run half power)
I do one 30 gallon water change every ten days (17 percent)
I siphon half of the sand each water change. I use algae pad in back glass, magnet elsewhere. I have zero sponges in sump or
Over flows, and utilize one filter sock, ( not fine mesh, bleached and wash machined weekly)
As for feeding, I feed twice per day, spectrum pellets and seaweed in the am, and once at night mixing pe mysis, spirulina brine, krill and clams.
I also have a 25 watt uv that one return pump (mag 5, 250 gph after head)
My water is crystal clear, and there may be about a teaspoon of detritus laying in my sump at any given time.
Now the the params:
Temp: 78 f
Sg: 1.022
Am 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate; blood red in API scale (>160)
Ph: sometimes 7.8, but typically 7.73 (pinpoint probe in sump)
Kh: 7 (7 drops in API kit turns water yellow)
My question is, if fish appear well and grand, doin start a different routine?
Do I start doing 30 percent changes, instead of 17?
What about ph, do I buff water daily to keep it higher? ( I only use r/o water, <10 tds)
If so , here's my problem logically:
My pinpoint meter is about 5 months old. If I look at it the wrong way, the numbers move. I can calibrate it today, and tomorrow it will be a few ticks off, how do I know the machine is consistent and not precise? Is it more important the number, is 7.73 constantly (stable) or 8.2 -8.0 intermittently?
With nitrates, I am using API test kit. Could it be the test is off, and I am concerned about an unreliable piece of testing?
At the end of the day, my kit shows high nitrates. However, lack of maintenance or care, although not quantified or tested, IMO are superb.
To a layman, my tank is super clean, it's these numbers that keep me up at night.
And to further exacerbate my dilemma , being a math person, I can't figure this out; if your tank is fed x amount a week; say 10 grams of food. This equates in he end to 10 nitrates a week ( just an example)
If your start at zero (new water) and at the end if a calendar week have 10 nitrates, well no problem, water change. 20 percent water change leaves you with 80 percent of original water (80 percent of 10= 8)
So beginning of week two, you have 8 nitrates, you add ten more thru feeding, now you have 8 + 10...18
Another 20 percent water change and you have 14 nitrates. Draw this equation on a graph and you are at a hundred in no time.
I understand live rock, deep in its core should remove nitrate, but in all my years in keeping tanks, I have yet to examine that, even when I had
90 gallon reef tank with 140 lbs of rock. Perhaps if you had a sump 10x your display water volume, there would be enough.
Perhaps the answer might be to do 20 percent water changes, and once every 8 weeks or so hit it with a 70 percent change?
Again in all my years of maintaining not just mine, but class room, friend and family tanks, these numbers just never made sense or ares up to me.
But then again, I am not sure the non lab grade equipment, or at least affordable stuff I use to test with is any real indication if I have a problem or not.
Sorry for the rant, I am typing on an iphone looking at my tank, how it it looks fine to me, debating if I should ditch the pellet reactor (snake oil?) and start outing vodka in my tank.
For instance, there are several places, publications, forum posts, etc that post numbers for parameters. Ideally, you would like your tank to resemble these numbers as well, but at what expense?
I have a 155 that I have has since 99, and about a year ago had one fish. I went away to college prior to that, and slowly lost interest. Upon return, I wanted to get back into it. At one point my trates had to be in the 400. My crushed coral looked more like mud than anything, and my oh was around 7.5.
Rather than work with this mess, I decided to completely start over. I drained the tank, removed all sand, refilled tank with freshwater, bleached, and let it dry before recycling.
This was in august, and I have slowly added fish to where I am 5 months later. Right now I have a 7 inch blue angel, 4 inch asfur, 4 inch gray, 8 inch guinea fowl puffer, 5 inch green bird wrasse, 4 inch aussie tusk, 3 inch foxface, 7 inch sailfin tang, 3 inch achilles, 3 inch hippo, and a 6 inch volitan. I have a 300 gallon in my garage I am building a stand for, and will have tank up and running by summer.
With that said, my numbers are far from what I have read they should be. Before I say what they are , these Are tank specs:
155 gal, 20 more in the sump=175~
Weighed live rock dry: 115 lbs (started as dead Fiji and tonga)
1 inch reef grade sand on bottom,
Sro 3000 skimmer, bio pellet reactor using ecobak.
Two return pumps delivering about 1200 gallons an hour (6.8 turns an hour thru sump)
One maxspext rip tide (up to 5000 gallons hour, run half power)
I do one 30 gallon water change every ten days (17 percent)
I siphon half of the sand each water change. I use algae pad in back glass, magnet elsewhere. I have zero sponges in sump or
Over flows, and utilize one filter sock, ( not fine mesh, bleached and wash machined weekly)
As for feeding, I feed twice per day, spectrum pellets and seaweed in the am, and once at night mixing pe mysis, spirulina brine, krill and clams.
I also have a 25 watt uv that one return pump (mag 5, 250 gph after head)
My water is crystal clear, and there may be about a teaspoon of detritus laying in my sump at any given time.
Now the the params:
Temp: 78 f
Sg: 1.022
Am 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate; blood red in API scale (>160)
Ph: sometimes 7.8, but typically 7.73 (pinpoint probe in sump)
Kh: 7 (7 drops in API kit turns water yellow)
My question is, if fish appear well and grand, doin start a different routine?
Do I start doing 30 percent changes, instead of 17?
What about ph, do I buff water daily to keep it higher? ( I only use r/o water, <10 tds)
If so , here's my problem logically:
My pinpoint meter is about 5 months old. If I look at it the wrong way, the numbers move. I can calibrate it today, and tomorrow it will be a few ticks off, how do I know the machine is consistent and not precise? Is it more important the number, is 7.73 constantly (stable) or 8.2 -8.0 intermittently?
With nitrates, I am using API test kit. Could it be the test is off, and I am concerned about an unreliable piece of testing?
At the end of the day, my kit shows high nitrates. However, lack of maintenance or care, although not quantified or tested, IMO are superb.
To a layman, my tank is super clean, it's these numbers that keep me up at night.
And to further exacerbate my dilemma , being a math person, I can't figure this out; if your tank is fed x amount a week; say 10 grams of food. This equates in he end to 10 nitrates a week ( just an example)
If your start at zero (new water) and at the end if a calendar week have 10 nitrates, well no problem, water change. 20 percent water change leaves you with 80 percent of original water (80 percent of 10= 8)
So beginning of week two, you have 8 nitrates, you add ten more thru feeding, now you have 8 + 10...18
Another 20 percent water change and you have 14 nitrates. Draw this equation on a graph and you are at a hundred in no time.
I understand live rock, deep in its core should remove nitrate, but in all my years in keeping tanks, I have yet to examine that, even when I had
90 gallon reef tank with 140 lbs of rock. Perhaps if you had a sump 10x your display water volume, there would be enough.
Perhaps the answer might be to do 20 percent water changes, and once every 8 weeks or so hit it with a 70 percent change?
Again in all my years of maintaining not just mine, but class room, friend and family tanks, these numbers just never made sense or ares up to me.
But then again, I am not sure the non lab grade equipment, or at least affordable stuff I use to test with is any real indication if I have a problem or not.
Sorry for the rant, I am typing on an iphone looking at my tank, how it it looks fine to me, debating if I should ditch the pellet reactor (snake oil?) and start outing vodka in my tank.
