My 29 BioCube UPDATED PICS
- Thread starter perfectdark
- Start date
perfectdark
Active Member
Water schedule is 20% every 2 weeks RO/DI pre mix salt.
Salinity is 0.024
Nitrates never above 10ppm sometimes 0. I expected a hike when i treated for a small outbreak of Cyano, but nothing. I still did a water change though.
PH between 8.2 and 8.4 varies depending on when I test.
Nitrites 0
Every 4th week I bring a sample to my LFS for the "real" test. They use the tubes and chemicals to get real accurate readings. I figure hey let them do it as long as my test strips arent miles apart one test to the next theres no need to purchase one of those kits right now, so far so good.
I find some really good deals so I buy them when I can. As long as I dont see any monumental spikes in my leves and my tank is crystal clear, I figure all is well.
Its been a month since I added any fish and I got rid of my Condy Anenomie and my Flame scallop. Both too big for my tank. I think the trade off basically had no increase in my bioload or so my tests tell me. My Yellow Pollyups are fraggin like crazy and I am not sure yet if its red coral line algea or a small red mushroom but one of the 2 is on a shell of a hermit crab..LOL. I say the mushroom because he was on them for about 5 days cleaning the LR they were on.
Salinity is 0.024
Nitrates never above 10ppm sometimes 0. I expected a hike when i treated for a small outbreak of Cyano, but nothing. I still did a water change though.
PH between 8.2 and 8.4 varies depending on when I test.
Nitrites 0
Every 4th week I bring a sample to my LFS for the "real" test. They use the tubes and chemicals to get real accurate readings. I figure hey let them do it as long as my test strips arent miles apart one test to the next theres no need to purchase one of those kits right now, so far so good.
I find some really good deals so I buy them when I can. As long as I dont see any monumental spikes in my leves and my tank is crystal clear, I figure all is well.
Its been a month since I added any fish and I got rid of my Condy Anenomie and my Flame scallop. Both too big for my tank. I think the trade off basically had no increase in my bioload or so my tests tell me. My Yellow Pollyups are fraggin like crazy and I am not sure yet if its red coral line algea or a small red mushroom but one of the 2 is on a shell of a hermit crab..LOL. I say the mushroom because he was on them for about 5 days cleaning the LR they were on.
perfectdark
Active Member
just wanted to change the title
bonebrake
Active Member
Sounds like your doing good!
Your next "level" in being a reefkeeper will be learning how to understand calcium and alkalinity. Now that you have a Fungia sp. (plate coral) it will be important for you to maintain calcium and alkalinity so that it grows well. Also, the sooner you learn that game the faster your coralline algae will grow too!
Your next "level" in being a reefkeeper will be learning how to understand calcium and alkalinity. Now that you have a Fungia sp. (plate coral) it will be important for you to maintain calcium and alkalinity so that it grows well. Also, the sooner you learn that game the faster your coralline algae will grow too!
perfectdark
Active Member
Originally Posted by Bonebrake
Sounds like your doing good!
Your next "level" in being a reefkeeper will be learning how to understand calcium and alkalinity. Now that you have a Fungia sp. (plate coral) it will be important for you to maintain calcium and alkalinity so that it grows well. Also, the sooner you learn that game the faster your coralline algae will grow too!
Sounds like a plan, whats the next step then if you dont mind me asking? Is there a catch or is it as easy as testing for both and adding a buffer of some sort when necessary?
Sounds like your doing good!
Your next "level" in being a reefkeeper will be learning how to understand calcium and alkalinity. Now that you have a Fungia sp. (plate coral) it will be important for you to maintain calcium and alkalinity so that it grows well. Also, the sooner you learn that game the faster your coralline algae will grow too!
Sounds like a plan, whats the next step then if you dont mind me asking? Is there a catch or is it as easy as testing for both and adding a buffer of some sort when necessary?
bonebrake
Active Member
It really isn't that easy, but most people do that though: test and dose, test, dose, test, dose, test, dose,... Things are a lot better when you understand the chemistry of how alkalinity works and how it affects calcium and pH. It is pretty complicated stuff; especially if you have no background in chemistry. Shoot me an email and I'll send you a link to an article that I probably could not post here.
stevenbonebrake@gmail.com
:joy:
stevenbonebrake@gmail.com
:joy:
perfectdark
Active Member
Thanks man, email sent. :joy:
N
nemo_66
Guest
looks great. i might have missed it, but what kind of lights are you running? and what camera. pics are nice and clear!
perfectdark
Active Member
Just the stock lighting, 2 36 watt PC'c, one 10,000k one blue acentic. Coralife is the name on them. My camera is a Minolta Maxxum 5D Digital SLR, 6.1 Mega Pixel with an 18-70mm wide angle lens and a 28-200 outdoor lens that I try to use for up close shots. I have to mess with more settings though to get that lens dialed in, apprature and shutter speed. Thanks for looking.
perfectdark
Active Member
hmmmm ok ill send it out again sorry man my bad.
perfectdark
Active Member
Its away again lets see if it works this time
perfectdark
Active Member
Originally Posted by Bonebrake
Received and replied!
:joy:
Thanks buddie, I got and started to read a bit.
Oh yea by the way just got my refractometer in today. Scored a brand new one on a rather popular site that shall remain nameless.
Received and replied!
:joy:
Thanks buddie, I got and started to read a bit.
Oh yea by the way just got my refractometer in today. Scored a brand new one on a rather popular site that shall remain nameless.
perfectdark
Active Member
Test Pic
bonebrake
Active Member
Awesome, make sure you calibrate it appropriately.
Only a lab-grade quality refractometer can get away with being calibrated with distilled water. The cheap ones we use in this hobby (less than $100) can still be inaccurate when you use distilled water to calibrate. For example: Say each increment is off +/- 0.0001. You would think this would not be a big deal, but when you calibrate at 1.000 and then go all the way up to measure you saltwater at 1.025-1.026 that +/- 0.0001 per unit of 0.001 is now a range of error of +/- 0.002. So your saltwater could actually be anywhere from 1.023-1.028!
It turns out I had been keeping my water at 1.027-1.028 all of this time when I intended to keep it at 1.025-1.026. A month ago a reef buddy of mine told me about all of this and he had a standardized solution that has an s.g. of 1.025 at room temperature and I calibrated my refractometer to that so it would be right on.
Does it really matter if your refractometer is off? No, but it is nice to have it be accurate so you're at least keeping your s.g. where you think you are.
:joy:
Only a lab-grade quality refractometer can get away with being calibrated with distilled water. The cheap ones we use in this hobby (less than $100) can still be inaccurate when you use distilled water to calibrate. For example: Say each increment is off +/- 0.0001. You would think this would not be a big deal, but when you calibrate at 1.000 and then go all the way up to measure you saltwater at 1.025-1.026 that +/- 0.0001 per unit of 0.001 is now a range of error of +/- 0.002. So your saltwater could actually be anywhere from 1.023-1.028!
It turns out I had been keeping my water at 1.027-1.028 all of this time when I intended to keep it at 1.025-1.026. A month ago a reef buddy of mine told me about all of this and he had a standardized solution that has an s.g. of 1.025 at room temperature and I calibrated my refractometer to that so it would be right on.
Does it really matter if your refractometer is off? No, but it is nice to have it be accurate so you're at least keeping your s.g. where you think you are.
:joy:
perfectdark
Active Member
What about using RO/DI water to calibrate it? I was told that if you did that you would be right on. Thats not the same as distilled is it?
