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melev

Day 20: Water testing

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by
melev
, 02-25-2011 at 02:24 AM (3502 Views)
I pulled out the test kits tonight to see where things are. I'm happy to report great numbers across the board.

Salinity 1.026sg
pH 8.22
ORP 313
Temperature 79.3F
Alkalinity 10dKH
Calcium 480ppm
Magnesium 1450ppm
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0

Even with these excellent numbers, I'm going to do a 50g water change tomorrow.

The LED refugium lighting was installed two nights ago, and they look fantastic. Totally what I'd hoped for. Lots of 6500K lighting, using CREE LEDs every 2". It was custom-made by Unique LED Lighting. I'll be sure to post up a full review after I've had it running for a while.

The vent fan was finally installed in the ceiling. I decided to simply buy a brand new unit instead of replacing the motor in the old one. It is directly over the walkboard, so easy to access for cleaning and at the same time not over my reef at all, so no worries about drips landing in the system.

Next Wave is consuming all of my time, so I'll have to post pictures when I have time, probably starting Sunday. I posted a few via my iPhone on Facebook if you follow me there.

Tomorrow, a group of us are going to visit the Dallas World Aquarium, then that evening we have to set up for the Saturday event.

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Tags: leds, vent fan
Categories
‎ Tank Entry , ‎ Lighting , ‎ Water Chemistry

Comments

  1. Mustang's Avatar
    Hey Marc quick question on your salinity. I was of the understanding that it should be at a range of 1.020-1.024. Do you find better results with 1.026 and would the .002 points make much of difference? Thanks
  2. Jnarowe's Avatar
    with Ca so high, I would expect a coraline explosion fairly soon!
  3. melev's Avatar
    I stay at 1.026sg / 35ppt since that is what is normal for where the corals we keep come from.
  4. Mustang's Avatar
    Good to know. If my tank was at about 1.022 would that have caused me to loose that coral (i think some one said it looked like a star polyp)?
  5. Eric B's Avatar
    Marc, Glad to see the new tank is progressing nicely!
  6. Neelixx's Avatar
    Curious on how you do a water change. Can you sump handle a full 50g change, or do you do a little at a time? I'm designing a 250g tank, and would like the sump to be big enough to do a full change, but I may be over-reaching here.
  7. NightShade's Avatar
    Sounds like things are doing good, was hoping to make it down to NextWave but since I was dealing with a major staph infection earlier this month and still recovering funds just didn't allow it. Hopefully next year will work better or at some other point in time but I know I can count on you to take quite a few pics for us all.
  8. cruelle's Avatar
    Marc...great to see the tank off to smooth start.
  9. melev's Avatar
    I don't have a good water change system in place yet, but hope to in the next month or two. I was given some advice on FB by Brett to lower the Alkalinity to 8 dKH because of the NP pellets. SPS apparently get burned tips with higher alkalinity, so I'm adjusting the calcium reactor accordingly. I do have a little bit of burnt tips happening on a few frags, but didn't know it was due to the NP pellets. I'll have to keep an eye on that and see if it proves to be true.
  10. maroun.c's Avatar
    Marc is it advised to run Biopellets on a new setup?
    What volume of BP are you going with and what flow do you have them on? any signs of bacterial bloom or Cyano?
  11. Jato460's Avatar
    do you use the api calcium test kit because when I do it is way off from the pet stores
  12. melev's Avatar
    Maroun, I opted to run biopellets from the very beginning knowing it would take a few weeks for them to break in and start doing their thing. Like any bacteria, the volume you'll have is based upon available food stuffs present in the system (or in this case the reactor). I used two 1-liter bags of Vertex NP pellets that I purchased from Premium Aquatics. I've not seen any bacterial bloom in my system. No cyano either. Just a little bit of diatoms on the tank. I can't measure the flow, but was told to run 500gph through the NextReef reactor. That's probably close to what I'm doing, based on how the media tumbles.

    I use the Salifert Calcium test kit, Jato.