Water Parameters

Testing is something I always recommend to anyone, especially if their tank is seemingly off. But what about testing when everything is right? When talking to Joe Yaiullo of the Atlantis Aquarium (formerly the Long Island Aquarium), he mentioned how he tests repeatedly to make sure the results he gets are accurate. Specifically, if salinity is dead on, he tests again and again to make sure that it's actually correct and not a false sense of security. As he pointed out, when we see the numbers we like, we don't retest. 

On Sunday, a friend of mine offered to help me from his home in Missouri to get my Aqua Controller 3 working with the U-verse Gateway (router), and get the Aquanotes App on my iPhone communicating with it once again. Knowing it would take some time, we tackled it Sunday afternoon after I had my first cup of coffee.

2007 is behind us, and I thought it would be interesting to post a few statistics for the year.

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Over the three day weekend, I spent time repainting the house. Finally.

Pictures

Water tests were completed yesterday. While it is important to test the water often, I find myself putting it off for various reasons. I think the biggest reason is because I worry the water results will come back negatively, and it'll be one more issue that needs to be dealt with. Yesterday's results were pretty good, which was a nice surprise.

Reef parameters have been updated. Alkalinity and Calcium have risen quite a bit since the Calcium Reactor was cleaned out and refilled. Phosphates are up again, which is so hard for me to believe. I'll test it again tonight to see if the first reading was false. There are 11 fish in the tank now, and I feed less than before. The Phosban Reactors were refilled about 10 days ago, and PO4 should really have dropped completely. Strange.

Yesterday, all water parameters were tested and logged.

Then I changed out both Phosban Reactors with media, and used twice as much as last time. (12 heaping teaspoons per reactor) I also changed the carbon in the third reactor to help remove toxins from the water. All associated pumps were thoroughly cleaned.

Time for a long overdue update. First of all, water tests have been published. Nitrates are sky high, but I have a feeling that the nitrate test kit is faulty. Jimmy Walls came over with his test kit and the reading was much lower, like under 10ppm. Mine says 75ppm. Just in case, I'm treating the tank with Algone, a product that is supposed to absorb nitrate. I may have to pick up another kit just to get further comparison numbers.

I tested my water a couple of times over the past few days to see if Phosphates are rising again. The Pura-Pads were removed as they looked "full" to me, and the Tunze Silphos system was returned to the vendor that lent it to me to try out.

I tested my water today, and still have wild numbers. It really is discouraging, as I was hoping for things to level out. Phosphates don't seem to be coming down whatsoever, but my refugium is very empty currently. I need to quit sharing macros until that section is dense with plants again.

I made the time to vacuum the sump of detritus. I know this question comes up often enough on RC about how to clean your sump out, since it is level with the floor. What I did was use what I had handy: