water test, dose this sound right?

[Jungle_John]

so this is new to me, when doing fresh water i always used dip sticks and went off them. will this is a liquid test kit and i think i match the colors right and did it all right. its the master kit from hagen. history of tank, 24 gal aquapod. all live rock in sump with charbon. 27lbs of rock in all, store bought water. i ran it with just rock 1 weeks and all test looked fine then 1 weeks with 10 hermits 9 snails 1 shrimp. had a huge algae boom and now that stop growing the crabs are cleaning it up nice. they got a little longer to go but i dont see no new growth. i did these test all looked good so i got 2 clowns to start with now. but i just want to run it by ya'll and see what you think. no my last test (about 10 mins ago finished) ran this.

 

Ammonia -0

Nitrites- 0

nitrates-5

KH-120

Calcium-320 (adding more calcium a day now)

Salinity-1.018 (im going to add saltwater for top offs to bring it up slowly, is there a better way?)

Phos- .25

PH- 8.5??? (this was confusing, my water was purpleish but the closes thing on the book wate blue, i did a dip strip and it said 8.4ish)

 

so dose this all sound right? im going to bring my water to the LFS so get it tested to see if im doing it right. they use the same kit there.

thanks for helping guys:) -John

[airangel]

Hey John

Ummm 2 wk old day and you added 2 clowns? egads.... Odd your water's SG is so low, if you buy from LFS. Don't know what to tell you on that one. You sure about the SG? My pH always runs on the low side so I've added buffer, not sure how to decrease. Just whatever you do, do it slowly so you don't shock the critters.

I only have rocks in the display nothing in the back but floss, purigen/chemipure, my skimmer and ATO sensor. My calcium runs low as the LFS water must not have much in it, what are you adding to yours?

I do need to test mine, I really hate the match color ones, I never really can nail a color on the head it seems.

[Jungle_John]

sorry i dont know what you mean by SG. hard for my to read and understand some things:-D being dyslexic sucks. i add calcium and iodine to my tank. 4 drops of cal a day 1 cap of iodine a week. i add 2 drops of vert food also (i got a small thing of coral groing on my lr, came with it)(i think clover). yea i hate the color match also, im not good at it. my water been reading realy good and all my live rock and water was presetup form my LFS so that made it go realy fast.

for the clowns they were on sale and with my workers discount (i work at another petshop) they were very very good price. i didnt want to get any fish for 2 months but i couldnt pass it up so im taking the risk. there doing awsome and eat very well. there very small so shouldnt put to much of a load on my tanks also. all my hermits are fine and all my snails are good except 2 witch havnt moved sence i got them (i checked them and there alive just dont move).

 

ill post the results of the LFS when i get them done. im very intrested to compare mine with theres.

[necigrad]

You're probably going way too fast. Never add fish two at a time in a tank that small. It's a HUGE bioload. Remember, the bioload isn't determined by the size of the tank (well it sort of is, but don't worry about that) but more by the bacteria. If the tank is 2 gallons or 20, you have whatever bacteria you have. This needs to be built up by slowly adding load to it. I've cycled a few FW tanks, and it takes a while. My understanding is SW is far slower.

 

I also wonder why you're dosing stuff. You don't even know what the coral is, so who knows if you need it. You should also by a hydrometer or more preferably a refractomoter to check your SG.

[airangel]

sorry i dont know what you mean by SG.

 

SG=Salinity

 

. i add calcium and iodine to my tank. 4 drops of cal a day 1 cap of iodine a week

 

Um reason for this? I add a wee bit of Purple Up after a water change as my Ca++ runs low with the water I'm using.

 

I don't feed my corals, if they catch a brine shrimp fine (I have polpys and mushrooms which I see catch food)

 

I do understand sale, but just go slow, hopefully they are small and you are feeding very very sparingly. Let the tank catch up / mature.

ill post the results of the LFS when i get them done. im very intrested to compare mine with theres.

 

Eager to see too. Hopefully they use real tests not like one I have been in that uses the dip strips, lol.

[Jungle_John]

i do have a refractomoter, i aged it last night(36hours in all) and did my first reading today, i dont know if its been aged enough or not but thats what it read:( the dosing of cal and idone is to keep it at the right lvl. not much if anything is using the iodine thats why im doing so little. the snails are using alot of the calcium and im trying to get it up to 450 (so in the future i can do clams). starting early to keep it more stable.

as for the fish i agree its a little fast, and i wouldnt have done it if the water test hasnt been fine. but they were at a very low price almost 80% off so i took the risk. working with fresh water (which i shouldnt compair it to salt) ive been very good at watching water changes and chemestry. hopfuly i can pass this over to my salt water adventure.

 

i to am concerned about it, especialy being so soon, but im going to keep a very close eye on it and the fish, any sign of stress and off they go to my buddys tank (which has been setup for a few years).

 

ill keep you posted:) thank you for your concern.

 

im taking SG mean salinaty? im trying to find its meaning but cant:(

 

ok cool so SG dose mean salinity:) thanks airangle

 

yea the fish are very small, and im feading 2-3 pellets of oralglow to each.

no other foods are going into the tank:)

[FirstSalt]

Jungle_John Posted Today, 10:36 PM

sorry i dont know what you mean by SG. hard for my to read and understand some things:-D being dyslexic sucks.

 

 

 

Hey jungl_John

 

Here is a little help I too am new at saltwater tank let alone nanoreef tanks but SG stands for Specific Gravity it has to do with you salt levels in your tank or somthing . I would be carefull adding salt water to top off your tank I would slowly raise it when I do water changes it a little easier to monitor that way. I will also give you a heads up some where on this site there is a guide to the short hand you will see on this site or hear from time to time. I would also keep an eye on you your clowns with your tank only 14 days old, I notice when I started my tank almost 4 months ago with water from my LFS " Local Fish Store" tanks my tank kinda did a yo-yo thing with my peram's one day they would be low to 0 and later on that day they would be thro the roof. Here is a moto that I had seen on this site and read somewhere else that I live by with my tank " Rome Wasn't Built In A Day nor was My Mini Reef" Good Luck with everything

[airangel]

i do have a refractomoter, i aged it last night(36hours in all) and did my first reading today, i dont know if its been aged enough or not but thats what it read:( the dosing of cal and idone is to keep it at the right lvl. not much if anything is using the iodine thats why im doing so little. the snails are using alot of the calcium and im trying to get it up to 450 (so in the future i can do clams). starting early to keep it more stable.

 

Um aged it? Calibrate you mean??

I too want a clam down the road and my calciums lower than I'd like, I'd prefer to get it higher naturally vs dosing. I don't mix my own salt, I buy RO/DI from LFS for top off and their salted water, which I am sure is low on calcium to start with. I'd like to find a brand of salt mix that is higher in calcium.

 

 

as for the fish i agree its a little fast, and i wouldnt have done it if the water test hasnt been fine. but they were at a very low price almost 80% off so i took the risk. working with fresh water (which i shouldnt compair it to salt) ive been very good at watching water changes and chemestry. hopfuly i can pass this over to my salt water adventure.

 

I've had FW tanks for decades and salt is so much different, let alone the cost of livestock and what not. My tank had been running for 8 months before I took it over, sand bed/rocks stayed but I used new water after I got the tank home. It was weeks before I added anything and it was a CUC first before the fish. I had a salt tank a few years before, didn't wait for things as long as I should have and it crashed big time....didn't want to go thru the same this time around.

 

Sales will come and go, if you miss it now, there will be another. That's the key with this hobby, patience and more patience.

 

Will be watching to see how things go. I just tested my water, calcium as usual is low, my nitrates are a bit more than I'd like, rest seem fine. I will be redoing my aquascaping and hoping to find the nitrate source as I redo things, move the skimmer, rinse out the chemipure bags etc.

[Jungle_John]

so update

this is what we got at the LFS

Ammonia -very very little

Nitrites- very very little

nitrates-very little

KH- didnt tell me (if did)

Calcium-didnt do

Salinity-1.018(using a hight slainty to raise it slowly now its 1.019-1.020)

Phos-i cant remember but was good

PH- was around 7.8-7.9 (very dangerous! how? we dont know but im using a buffer to bring it to 8.3)

 

i said refractomoter, i ment hydrometer. i said the wrong one but ment hydrometer:(

 

as for the fish this morning i woke up to them floating on there side at the top, i watch them for about 30mins and they keep doing it, didnt know why they were floating. my light came on and boom they were fine! there eating fine and show no wrong signs now... were they float sleeping??? idk but im going to keep a close eye on them still, specialy with the ph and salinaty there so low, while i bring them both up.

 

besides that the cycle looks great he said for a new tank

 

ill keep ya'll posted

[Mark S]

John,

 

Why are you dosing Iodine? Its very unusual to dose that. If you cant test for it, please dont add it. I mean this in the nicest way, but before you add or do anything else....please spend a few days reading this forum about how to get a tank going. There is tons of info here, you just have to spend the time reading it. I know its a pain...but ...I see a disaster in the making and lots of money down the drain. I bet I spent several months and dozens of hours reading "how too" in this forum before I put water in my tank. It saved me from making 100's of mistakes and loss of 100's if not 1000's of dollars.

 

 

I also would believe almost anything here over what a fish store said, most give the worst advice you can find anywhere.

[FirstSalt]

I would also second Mark S about local LFS they are in the biz to make money and will tell you what you wanna hear I don't mean to bash your LFS but I learned the hard way after battling a real bad algea prob and all the kept doing was tell me you need this to fix that. I found this website and all I do now is ask quastions hear weed through the answer I get and come up with my own conclusion then I buy what I need not what they want me to buy that day. Sorry tobe so blunt but everyone on this site want to see a tank suceed.

[Lalani]

John, slooooooow down, please! Don't add anything else for at least a month. Your tank needs to mature and stabilize. Since the tank is still so new, the pH is probably going to swing all over the place for a couple of weeks... it does this in new tanks. Buy a refractometer, hydrometers are not the most reliable. Stop dosing iodine, water changes replenish it just fine. Clownfish are funny, and sometimes sleep the way you described. You added them way too soon, just like everything else, so you must stay on top of your water parameters. If any ammonia or nitrite show up, you will need to remove the fish and shrimp from the tank and bring them back to the LFS or set up a quarantine tank. And please stop impulse buying!!! I don't want to bust your balls over this, but you're really moving way too fast.

[bdare]

I'd seriously consider ditching those hagen kits. They are not considered to be very accurate. I'd at LEAST go with API. Other good ones include Salifert, Elos, and LaMotte.

[FirstSalt]

I would also recomend API test kits I have both the SW and Reef kit and the haven't failed me yet.

[Jungle_John]

update just did the water test again.

Ammonia -very very little (.2)

Nitrites- very very little (.1)

nitrates-very little (5)

Salinity-1.021-1.022

Phos-.25

PH- was purple again, i going to get a different ph kit

 

i do agree that i should dose for iodine sence i cant test it. even though its just a little each week i did stop it till i get corals and have proper testing for it.

 

this is the kit im currently using

http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~idp...ct~HG17860.html

(i got it cheaper that that however... alot cheaper)

 

so far its been very good all except the ph, so i need a better ph tester.

 

 

You added them way too soon, just like everything else, so you must stay on top of your water parameters. If any ammonia or nitrite show up, you will need to remove the fish and shrimp from the tank and bring them back to the LFS or set up a quarantine tank.

 

 

i agree im going fast however ive done alot of research and know the concerns, even i am concern however im testing water daily making sure all it well and have a 16 hour watch at all time on it (got to sleep). i also have a buddy with 3 well establish tanks (one that he has almost nothing in) if anything dose go wrong it wont take me but 10 mins to get them over to his place.

the reason i think im ok is because all my live rock came from a establish tank, so did my water. i think this is letting my cycles go faster but still even with that im keeping the close eye. ill keep every one uptodate.

 

btw: my clowns doing great, did the floating thing at night again (sleeping im taking) light come on up and about looking for food pecking at things. no signs of illness (knock on wood)

[bdare]

If you did as much research as you claim you'd be doing things MUCH differently.

[Lalani]

John, even a tiny bit of ammonia or nitrite is enough to stress the inhabitants and possibly lead to their death. I understand that the rock came from an established tank, but you yourself have shown that the rock is cycling again. Most, if not all, people here will agree that adding any inhabitants to a tank that is cycling is bad husbandry. And you don't seem to concerned about it.

[megan]

SG is Specific Gravity. Do you still have all of your rock in your sump? I would think your fish need something in the tank for comfort. Also, why are you having such a hard time with your SG? Just do a water change and add a little more salt. If your fish store can't even get SG right, I would not buy water or anything from them. Stop dosing, stop adding, and just let your tank mature for a while. Keep reading and you'll get good information here on the site.