Water Condition - Help
- Thread starter SWBeginer
- Start date
lokii_37
New member
I agree with this. We could make it a blind test.
SWBeginer
Member
The water is 90% more clear than before after I did two things.
Put a sock to the drain pipe which collected lots of "brown" stuffs. Looks like the GFO had washed out from the reactor or something. I need to change those two filter pads I think. Will remove the sock once the water is clear and stable. Or should i leave it there and change socks every few days?
Stopped dosing for a week and the "white" cloudness (calcuim precipitation?) was cut-down to minium.
Will do a 20-25% of water change every other week from now to keep it up.
Put a sock to the drain pipe which collected lots of "brown" stuffs. Looks like the GFO had washed out from the reactor or something. I need to change those two filter pads I think. Will remove the sock once the water is clear and stable. Or should i leave it there and change socks every few days?
Stopped dosing for a week and the "white" cloudness (calcuim precipitation?) was cut-down to minium.
Will do a 20-25% of water change every other week from now to keep it up.
Grant W
New member
I would suggest you take a sample of your new salt water prior to using it and test it once to see what you are adding before the next water change just to see what you are adding as far as alk ca and mag. Iassume you are mixing to 1.025 sg and heating and circulating it overnight before using it also. this way you have an idea of what effect the water changes will have on the big three parameters. Hope this helps.
Xx YOZER xX
New member
SWBeginer, a lot of us run a filter sock on our drains at all times. I like to have a backup ready, and change them out once they get gunked up. They also help with the air bubbles created by the drain water crashing into the sump. The fine air bubbles could be contributing to the cloudiness in your tank.
SWBeginer
Member
I'm using Aquavitro. some reefers complained that Mag will drop if let the water sit for too long. I usually had the water sit for 2-3 hours before I changed the water.
I did a survey on sock or sockless before I had the tank setup and lots of responses said they don't use socks.
zeroinverse
New member
I never run filter socks. Mostly because they become another place where you convert waste into nitrates without the followup "denitrification" (conversion of nitrates into nitrogen gas).
Plus I'm too lazy to clean the filter socks. ^_^
With proper skimming, I think most of my organic waste is pulled out. What is left will hopefully be processed by my live rock, deep sand bed, and macroalgae.
I have a "pseudo filter" system which is my tank water drains into my "in-sump frag tank" area where the leftover food from feeding display tank trickle down to feed corals & pods in my sump frag tank.
This excess water flows into a macroalgae grow out area where chaeto traps food particles (sort of like a mechanical filter). This helps feed pods and whenever I trim my chaeto, some of the larger food particles get filtered out.
Then the water goes to my protein skimmer to be "skimmed" before returning to the display tank.
Plus I'm too lazy to clean the filter socks. ^_^
With proper skimming, I think most of my organic waste is pulled out. What is left will hopefully be processed by my live rock, deep sand bed, and macroalgae.
I have a "pseudo filter" system which is my tank water drains into my "in-sump frag tank" area where the leftover food from feeding display tank trickle down to feed corals & pods in my sump frag tank.
This excess water flows into a macroalgae grow out area where chaeto traps food particles (sort of like a mechanical filter). This helps feed pods and whenever I trim my chaeto, some of the larger food particles get filtered out.
Then the water goes to my protein skimmer to be "skimmed" before returning to the display tank.
Xx YOZER xX
New member
To each their own I guess... I prefer to catch all the junk and get it out of the system once a week. If I stir up the sand, or dust off the rocks, all of that junk doesn't get spread all over my sump, and ran through all the pumps (skimmer, gfo/carbon, bio pellets). Also depends on how your sump is setup. Without a filter sock I get tons of micro bubbles in the main tank. With a filter sock, my water is super clear.
Reef Bass
colors and textures
I was sockless or socks only when stirring stuff up for years. I recently have gone sock full time. Aside from cutting back on floaties in the water, I believe it helps to remove a lot of that marine dust that blows off of things when basting, and that water quality improves slightly when the debris clogged sock is removed. I notice less detritus accumulating in the sump too.
And yes, sock cleaning is tedious. Seems like something I should be teaching my kids to do...
And yes, sock cleaning is tedious. Seems like something I should be teaching my kids to do...
woodnaquanut
Active member
And yes, sock cleaning is tedious. Seems like something I should be teaching my kids to do...
Let us know how that works out. I'd like to copy your successful methods.
Dragonvale
New member
Huh the socks no socks dilemma. If your using socks you have to have a large rotation! I made the mistake of always waiting for them to overflow before changing them out. So it became a nitrate manufacturer. When I had the 250 I made it a habit to change every 5 days no matter how the socks looked. Unless you did your bi-weekly blow the rocks, clean the glass gig then I'd changed it 1- 1.5 days after. FYI, I had 12 pairs of 8" socks and ran two at a time. The fiancée wasn't too happy when I washed them in the washing machine. So I washed them with bleach, then did another wash with heavy bleach with nothing in the washer.
If you get the mesh and not the felt ones, they only require rinsing which is a really quick process under the tap and then I just dunk them in an RODI bucket with a very small amount of prime added. Actually, I keep multiple sets in there.
There is no real dilemma on whether to do physical filtration; it needs to be done. The dilemma is really about how "lazy" you are in doing maintenance. Not doing physical filtration does not cut down on nitrate production. The stuff that gets stuck in a 200 micron sock is probably not getting taken out in a skimmer. It just gets stuck in your rock and sand work which will then turn into nitrates at best or at worst be attacked by anaerobic bacteria and start producing sulfides into the system.
There are however many different ways of doing physical filtration that do not rely on sock like mechanisms. One I just came across looking at an aquaponics system is the radial flow filter which admittedly would work better on a larger system, but looks like a cool method for achieving the same thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=...Lf1r6&feature=player_detailpage&v=G0pTf12wDOQ
There is no real dilemma on whether to do physical filtration; it needs to be done. The dilemma is really about how "lazy" you are in doing maintenance. Not doing physical filtration does not cut down on nitrate production. The stuff that gets stuck in a 200 micron sock is probably not getting taken out in a skimmer. It just gets stuck in your rock and sand work which will then turn into nitrates at best or at worst be attacked by anaerobic bacteria and start producing sulfides into the system.
There are however many different ways of doing physical filtration that do not rely on sock like mechanisms. One I just came across looking at an aquaponics system is the radial flow filter which admittedly would work better on a larger system, but looks like a cool method for achieving the same thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=...Lf1r6&feature=player_detailpage&v=G0pTf12wDOQ
