Miss Wiggle And Big Ian's First Marine Tank!

[SkiFletch]

Well, thats a sign that the algae is doing its thing and fixing some nitrates. Man, you guys must have a lot of waste around the tank...

Dunno if the LFS can test the TDS of your water, but if they cant, perhaps someone on this forum might be local enough to you (and have a TDS meter) to bring a sample to them and have it checked out. A TDS meter is the only way to truly know if your RO membrane needs replacing. For example, my RO membrane puts out water with a TDS of 2ppm despite being over 2 years old. It functions fantastically cause I flush it very often. 2ppm means that only 2 parts per million has any solute other than H2O... A very good reading. 10 or less is generally an acceptable RO discharge TDS. If you're over 10ppm, flush the membrane. And if after flushing its still above 10ppm, the membrane needs replacing (and you might also want to examine any pre-filters at that time to see if they need replacing. TDS meters are pretty cheap in the stats but I dont know what they are in the UK. Here they're like $15 online, dunno about there though

 

[Miss Wiggle]

well the tanks been running for yrs with no clean up crew and next to no maintenance. I'm really not surprised it's got loads of waste and is taking a while to come down.

we've been told we can test the membrane's on the RO by checking the ph, if it's coming out at 5.5 then it's fine, if it's 7. something then it needs replacing. According to that test ours is still fine. Rang the LFS today they can't test for tds, will have an ask around though, there's a marine specialist shop run by a marine biologist on the other side of leeds, might call him. Had a little look online for TDS meter, only looked on one shop but they were all like #50..... we can get a new membrane for the RO cheaper than that!

we have tested mixed SW but not 24hrs after mixing it up. Probably just an hr or so afterwards. We did it once with some old salt the old bloke gave us and that had a small nitrate reading, we're using new salt now and that's not giving any nitrate reading so I don't think it helped that our first 3/4 changes we were unknowingly adding more nitrates to the tank with the dodgy salt lesson learnt.

 

[pipatic]

you can get a tds meter pen type ,from ebay and should read 0

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, dodgy salt = bad . Make sure you wait 24 hours to make sure that all organics have been dissolved and processed before testing newly mixed saltwater . I agree, Ebay is a great source for TDS meters.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah Ian had a quick browse on ebay yesterday said he found some for a tenner or so. I'll have a proper look and get us one in the next few days.

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah they're very affordable. Basically just a battery operated voltmeter with some electronics to convert that voltage into a TDS.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

had a bit of a crisis this weekend we were away for Ian's sisters wedding, I put the metal halide on a timer for about 7/8 hrs a day, in little portions of a few hrs so it didn't over heat. Came home and the lights on, everyone except the leather's looking OK, I checked the time, the light was supposed to have just come on 10 mins before we got in so I just thought the leather hadn't started opening. Got on with unpacking and sorting the cats out etc. Set the RO running for a water change. Glanced at the temp of the tank as I walked past 33oC!!! BUGGER!! Must have knocked the time onto constant before we left by accident. so it had been on from fri about 3pm until sun 1pm we obviously turned the bloody thing off and opened the lid so it cooled down, a good few hrs later it had dropped back down to 31/32 ish, we then did a very very slow water change with water at the correct tank temp, obviously it needed to come down but not too suddenly. Finished that and it was down to about 30 by the time we went to bed. Left the lid open overnight and when I came down this morning it was back down to 26 phew! Wanted to see if we'd lost anything so I put the light on this morning while I had my breakfast and everythign seemed to be starting to open up. Sure it'll take it all a few days to recover. Is there anything we should be doing now to speed up they're recovery?

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

Hey

I'm not the only one who's had lots of problems on start up then

Hopefully everything should be okay my tank overheated a little in the summer and everything was fine. Just keep your eye on it

I know i asked earlier how old the RO Unit was and you said the bloke said it was replaced recently i think that he might of been telling you porky If he did very little maintenance to the tank i can't see him replacing the filters or even flushing the unit very often. I think this could be the cause of nitrates in your tank and the growth of algae.

Also when you get the TDS Meter be sure to get a calibration solution, most of them come with one but mine didn't and i forgot all about so i still haven't used it yet

Sorry if you've already done things i've said but it's a long thread and i couldn't get round t te reading it all

Goodluck anyway and keep going it will get there in the end
Dan

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah were preared to accept he may well have been lying. Our tests so far show that the RO is still OK, we're gonna try and get a tds meter asap. Also the skimmer's gone kaput so we're gonna get a new one of those in the next week or so. Just money money money at the moment. We had really hoped with getting a mature set up we could just letit tick over and upgrade things in a bit so we wouldn't have all this expense at once.

 

[demonmagus]

thanks for this thread

its much better than any drama or soap

 

[Miss Wiggle]

thanks for this thread

its much better than any drama or soap

my life's like a bloody soap at the moment

 

[SkiFletch]

*snicker*

If your corals are opening back up, thats a good sign. Usually when things get heat burned, they wont open back up. My poor pocillipora met its fate this way. Tank got up to 87 or 88 when my A/C quit on the hottest day of the summer (why cant they go on the "bearable" days?). Poor guy never extended his polyps again... Slowly necrosed and died.

I gotta be honest though guys and say that a skimmer is not really necessary for you right now. You have very hardy fish and corals that can handle some dissolved organic compounds. Nitrates are not easily skimmed out anyways as they are not hydrophillic or hydrophobic enough to really get caught amidst bubble fractionation. You're only feeding two clowns every other day so your waste load is low. A skimmer frankly should be low on your priority list until you can get a TDS meter and verify that RO discharge. Until you start significantly adding livestock, a skimmer is probably a waste of money at this time. Nitrates first, DOC (dissolved organic compounds) second

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah we've also been pricing up a fuge.... can probably do it for about the same price as a skimmer, we were wondering which was the better investment right now. I thought the fuge might win.... also means we'll be all set up for about 12 years time when we're ready for Ian's mandarin goby.

 

[SkiFletch]

Lol, nice Keep us posted when that TDS meter gets in

 

[BigIan]

should hopefully be picking up the drilled tank this weekend, were getting a 2x1x1 with a hole drilled in the side for the return.
how much flow around the fuge do we need? is it still 20x turnover the same as in the tank?