Katsafado's first ever 10g SW tank(nano)

katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
Didnt get a chance to do most of what I said I wanted to lol.. Were doing an unknown bacteria project (find out what type your growing) so I ran out of time.
I did get to see the brine under the microscope though! It was pretty cool. They swim by doing the frog swim technique lol.. It looked like they had these little arms near their heads and they were swimming away.
Do they have one eye?!?! The brine that I kept seeing looked like it only had one eye lol.
 
katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
Ammonia - between 0.25 and 0 <-- do a W/C or is it a little high because I just fed the tank? Should I wait untill tomorrow to do the W/C?
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5.0
pH - 7.8 <-- can never raise it =( any ideas?
Phosphate - 0
Calcium - 500
KH - 12 / 214.8
ALK - normal range
Should I do the w/c tonight? How much should I take out?
 
katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
Stuffs not extended as it usually is.. But then again my actinics are only on and they usually shrink up.
I guess I'lkl do another W/C now. How much should I take out? I think I have somewhere near 5g made already.
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
Where did the ammonia come from. A water change can only help. 3 gallons would be okay. When are you testing you Ph? It will be highest just before lights out, and lowest just before lights on. Are you running your fuge light on an opposite cycle from your display lights or running them 24/7?
 
katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
Originally Posted by spanko
http:///forum/post/3169948
Where did the ammonia come from. A water change can only help. 3 gallons would be okay. When are you testing you Ph? It will be highest just before lights out, and lowest just before lights on. Are you running your fuge light on an opposite cycle from your display lights or running them 24/7?
I have no idea where the ammonia came from. My guess would be when I changed the filter media, I probably got rid of most opf the benificial bacteria growing in their. Plus because I had a little leake problem I had to pretty much cleranm out the whole filter to figure out where the blockage was.
I just did was W/C took out maybe more than the 3g's, and the light cycle for the fuge is pretty much the same as the dt. Sometimes I dont turn them on though since the cheato is growing out of the water and doesnt need to grow any more, or any faster.
pH was tested before the day lights turned off, and the actinics wer eonly on.
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
Yes if your filter materials are left in long enough to become a large part of your bio filter you may have cause a small spike. On the Chaetomorpha, the reason you have it growing is to be able to harvest it regularly. This harvesting is where the exporting of nutirents come from. Yes it does need to grow more and to grow faster as the faster it grows the more nutrients you are taking out of the system. On the lighting try to run for a time on alternating schedules, display lights on with fuge ligth off, then when the displays goes off the fuge goes on. This will at least help maintain some stability throught the 24 hour period and you can do some testing to see where the Ph is after some time. You may also have a problem with alkalinity but I cannot tell because you only list it as normal range. Can you tell us the actual value?
 
katsafados

katsafados

Active Member
Originally Posted by spanko
http:///forum/post/3169978
Yes if your filter materials are left in long enough to become a large part of your bio filter you may have cause a small spike. On the Chaetomorpha, the reason you have it growing is to be able to harvest it regularly. This harvesting is where the exporting of nutirents come from. Yes it does need to grow more and to grow faster as the faster it grows the more nutrients you are taking out of the system. On the lighting try to run for a time on alternating schedules, display lights on with fuge ligth off, then when the displays goes off the fuge goes on. This will at least help maintain some stability throught the 24 hour period and you can do some testing to see where the Ph is after some time. You may also have a problem with alkalinity but I cannot tell because you only list it as normal range. Can you tell us the actual value?
See I dont want to run the lights for the fuge at night because the tank is in my room, and my fuge light is a standard floresent hood(took the lighting component off of the hood) which tends to put out alot of light. Is there a big advantage of having them on seperate time scheduals, I'm not sure if you stated why its better or worse(maybe I didnt understand if you did). Also I change my filter media regularly on a 2 week basis, so I dont really know if that'd be anought time to build that big of a colony in the filter. I think it was more due to the fact I washed out my whole canister, so it probably washed off the benifitial bacteria that was growing on the wlals i nthe canister ect.
The alk was around 2.0
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
A little low on the alk. NSW is 2.5 and the acceptable range is 2.5 to 5 so the alk may be affecting your Ph some. Test you change water after it is mixed before you put it in the tank for both Ph and alk next time you make some. You may be correct on the cleaning of the filter. Tis why I try to not allow any filter material become part of the biofilter.
 
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