First Saltwater Aquarium here

[padam07]

Ok this is my first time dealing with saltwater. I only have a 29 g tank. On Monday I set up the tank with 50 lbs of sand and 16 lbs of coral rock. I can't afford a lot of LR yet and my LFS won't have any in stock until this coming Wednesday. I I have a penquin 330 and 2 biowheels form my girlfreinds 2 year old tank. Yesterday (THURS) I went to the fish store to get my water tested because I haven't bought any water test kits yet and everything was normal except PH and Calcium. My PH is way too high at 8.8 and my calcium is also way too high at 650. The person that helped me said that he never has seen calcium so high. I now have to go back to the LFS today to get my tapwater tested for calcium. (i would hope that my tap water is not this high because I will be getting some serious kidney stones). If my tapwater is too high I will have to drain my system and buy bottled water from Wal Mart to start over. I won't be too upset because I just want to figure the problem out. Does anyone have any suggestions for me?
Like I said before that is very new to me. Please help me out I want to get this fixed. Thank You in advance!!

 

[reefnut]

If you buy water from wal-mart make sure you get the distilled water. The natural spring water is not all that pure. When $$$$ allows invest in a RO/DI unit. You can get one that produces drinking water as-well so you don't have that hole kidney stones problem ...
Read up on tank cycling before you get to far into the tank set up. You can do a search and should find a lot of info. If not ask questions here and read, read, read everything you can find about SW tanks...

 

[reefnut]

A complete house system
RO units makes around 1 gallon for every 4 gallons wasted (varies depending on units). Your water bill would be as much as my house payment. There is really no reason to bath, flush & etc with RO water.

 

[beaslbob]

My personal opinion is that we tend to do too much. I'll not bore you with all the details but if you want more then email me at beaslbob@aol.com. My bottom line is to balance out the aquarium. That way the tank takes care of itself.
If you have to test (and I do recommend testing), I recommend you test nitrites and ph. (well specific gravity too) When the nitrites go up, stop feeding the fish until nitrites go down. Your ph is high now but will go down as you add livestock. My 55g went down to 7.4 and then back up as the tank cycled. I added baking soda to help but the bottom line was it took time for everything to adjust.
Next forget about RO units or buying "Good" water from anyplace. Your tank will process the water just fine.
The calcuim (other stuff from your tap water), will be absorbed as the tank cycles. Simply don't worry about that unless you want to raise Corals. I also do not do any water changes, just replace the water that evaporates. Algae is your friend. As it goes from brown to green you have a good indication that the stuff in the water is being used up.
Finally, to cycle your tank, I recommend plain old mollies. Get a male and female from your LFS. Nothing short of a total tank crash seems to bother them. Just take your time adjusting them to saltwater.
So that's my input. let me know how you tank does.
Robert J. Beasley

 

[reefnut]

Dude, that's just bad advise. Where did you come up with all that?

 

[beaslbob]

My advice was to someone starting out in the hobby and intended to make things simple. It is sufficient for a fish only tank. Very slight modification is required for inverts and a little more effort would be required for a reef tank.
Where did I get that advice? School of hard knocks. From 1978-1985 I had a 10 g saltwater using that advice. Results were that the three strip damsels spawned in that tank.
You select the most obviously bad part of that advice. Post why you think it is bad advice. And Then let me explain.
Robert J. Beasley

 

[reefnut]

lol, no thanks.

 

[reefnut]

Sorry Adam for turning your tread into a negative thing Again, there are a lot of aspects to SW Aquariums and the best thing you can do is read and learn. Don't be afraid to ask question. Have you got the results back on your tap water let?

 

[beaslbob]

Originally posted by ReefNut
Sorry Adam for turning your tread into a negative thing Again, there are a lot of aspects to SW Aquariums and the best thing you can do is read and learn. Don't be afraid to ask question. Have you got the results back on your tap water let?
And I did not mean to be negative either. Hope Adam is not too confused.
Robert Beasley

 

[david s]

pand welcome to the board I am from mass there are alot of good lfs in your area most sell ro water for .50 a gal some less than that give me a email. I will piont you to some good saltwater reef shops in the area Lisa.sylvia2@ verizon.net

 

[javatech]

Take a look here
http://www.simplifiedreefkeeping.com/faq/faq.htm
And as far as water get the best you can "Your tank will process the water just fine." is just Wrong. after all water is the air for your fish so give them the best

 

[discusking]

I am pretty sure that Calcium Ca+ can form an ionic bond with some other anion..LIke iodine or even Oxygen, MAybe if u could combine it with some other chemical...the calcium would be less potient. Or maybe u should get some shellfish for your aquarium before u get the fish. THey use calcium to build their exoskeleton and that should deplete the supply in no time. Many Coraline algaes also require Ca to grow...Just a thought

 

[elan]

padam07,
high calcium level is not good, but i would not start over again. leave your tank running.. its not going to hurt the bacteria you need to establish in your tank for right now. .. after your tank cycles, look into your LFS for some R/O DI water. probably the cheapest rout at this point. Doing water changes at this point is only going to prolong your cycle (although i have read a few threads on this board which say prolonging the cycle may be a good thing)
you may also want to check out the following link. http://www.waterdata.com/
I found all the following in my tap water from that site.
0.56 ppm Copper
0.2 ppm Fluoride
8 ppb Lead
23.7 ppm Sodium
0.12 ppm Nitrate
0.064 ppm Aluminum
56.2 ppm Chloride
18.7 ppm Sulfate
196 ppm "Total Dissolved Solids
Also, water to your tank is like blood in your body... the more quality you have, the better off you will be..... if the flow stops, everything will start to die off..... if you had a choice on your blood, wouldnt you want to make sure it didnt contain elements that are just plain bad for your fish/inverts/coral??? whichever type tank you plan on doing, better water means healthier tank.
As far as taking advice from this board, in a short time, you will figure out who knows their stuff and who doesnt... this is not to say two knowledgable people on this site always agree (everyone has their flavor and style), but for the most part, much of the advice i received is in line with the books i have read that were written by Dr's. and people with years of experience at marine biology.... which i may add is the best source of information.. just make sure its a current book (much of the advice out there isnt really "bad" but more "outdated". I suggest the conciencious marine aquariest by fenner.

 

[chris200058]

I totally agree with the posts of some individuals above but not all. The post on getting a water purifying system is not the best way to go if you have such a small tank. Besides going to a LFS will be alot cheaper in the long run. Don't take all the advise from everyone on this board to heart. Listen to it but then check out what they say in books or by asking your LFS They usually have a little advise in this area to help out.

 

[padam07]

Well, I went ot the LFS on Friday with my tap water and got it tested for calcium and for some reason the tst didn't work. Not sure why but when they added the 5 drops of solution B it was supposed to turn a pink color but it never did, it turned bright yellow.
Because I have such a small tank I just draiend it and used Wal Mart Spring water on Saturday. I am going back to the LFS today to get the water tesed again. We will see soon.

 

[elan]

well.. since you drained your tank and are starting over, why didnt you get RO/DI water??? its supposed to be much better than any other water you get, and the spring water...well.. it may be safe to drink but do you know what minerals/nutrients are in there? its it as close to 100% water as you can get? or does it contain phosphates, copper, etc that are not bad for humans, but horrible for a reef tank.

 

[beaslbob]

Originally posted by padam07
Well, I went ot the LFS on Friday with my tap water and got it tested for calcium and for some reason the tst didn't work. Not sure why but when they added the 5 drops of solution B it was supposed to turn a pink color but it never did, it turned bright yellow.
Because I have such a small tank I just draiend it and used Wal Mart Spring water on Saturday. I am going back to the LFS today to get the water tesed again. We will see soon.

The calcium test works by the first 5 drops (of a) causing a color change and adding drops of B until another color change is noticed. My guess is that the first 5 drops did not cause the change because there was a very low amount of calcuim in your tap water. This may also mean that the high calcuim in your tank came from things in the tank. I suspect that Crushed Coral or other decorations brought up the calcuim. Anyrate the Coraline algae on your live rock plus snales and crabs use calcuim for growth. Therefore, calcuim decrease over time.
I hope everyone here realises that constant restarting of aquariums is not the way to go. In your case, whatever caused the high calcuim will still be there. Additionally, your biological filter will take time to build up to where it was before you replaced all the water.
I hope you will allow things to settle down before replacing all the water again.

 

[reefnut]

Originally posted by chris200058
I totally agree with the posts of some individuals above but not all. The post on getting a water purifying system is not the best way to go if you have such a small tank. Besides going to a LFS will be alot cheaper in the long run. Don't take all the advise from everyone on this board to heart. Listen to it but then check out what they say in books or by asking your LFS They usually have a little advise in this area to help out.
A RO/DI will pay for itself in time no matter what size aquarium you have.
And as far as LFS advise... I would take the advise of this board 100 times over any advise from the LFS'. There are some good books out there...

 

[reefnut]

One more thing... Someone has a saying in their sig...
"You can lead a horse to water but you can not make them drink"