PDA

View Full Version : I need a little bit of help please..


paullondon
02/27/2015, 09:29 AM
Hello,
We currently converted our freshwater tank to saltwater. It's a 40 gallons glass tank, running on a 205 gallons/h external canister filter in which I placed poly filter and sponge filter (mainly for mechanical filtration) and a little bag of activated carbon. The lights are 2x Coralife T5 tubes running from 9 am to 5 pm. For waves and water movement we installed 2 x Hydor 425 gal/h pumps. The aquarium has 28 lbs of aragonite sand and 36.8 lbs of live rock.
We started the aquarium a little bit more than a week ago with tap water mixed with conditioner and Instant Ocean salt (I know, big mistake). We kept the lights off as per some online advice. After a week the ammonia was off the charts also the phosphates and nitrates, not to mention the smell in the house. I noticed little worms coming out of the live rock and dying... that was adding to the smell and my anxiety.
After a week and a half I purchased an RO/DI system and yesterday I spent my time dumping the old water, brushing the decaying hitchhikers and dead sponges off the rocks and setting up the aquarium with quality water... also we are letting the lights on now as per: http://youtu.be/tTjiD2QBs8M advice and I read everything I could about water chemistry at: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/subject/chemistry.php
While I am familiar with chemistry, I am not so familiar with how things should go in a marine aquarium. I do understand very well ions exchange and everything related to it but I think I need help on how to maintain the aquarium now and what to do next...
I started by keeping a log with the parameters and so far I have:
Calcium: 440 ppm
Alkalinity: 13 dKH
SG: 1.026
Temp.: 78F
pH: 7.8
Phosphate: 0.25 ppm
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrate 5 ppm
I added 20 ml of Nutrafin Cycle bio supplement. I will run the tests again tonight but I can clearly see the rock is curing and the thank is in full cycle process.
I was wondering if I should start dosing some Nitrate and phosphate remover solutions? Or if I should do partial water changes every day? I will attach a picture with my aquarium as it looks now.
I appreciate your time and help.

Paul