old salt reefer
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- Joined
- Nov 4, 2019
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- Brookpark,OH
- What state or country do you live in
- Ohio
To late to tell you not to do what it says on the bag of gravel(just pour it in the tank). WASH/RINSE it
with tap water until the water comes out clean, then rinse it again with RODI water and then put it in the tank. The bacteria on it will be fine.
Algae needs food to grow(nitrate and phosphate)these come into your aquarium by the food you feed. The fish eat the food(simple digestive system that doesn't absorb a lot out of the food) and poop. Some of the food gets missed by the fish and ends up in the gravel(stuck under the rocks,etc.)and rots(bacterial action)as does the 1/2 digest poop the fish and other animals(hermit crabs,snails,etc.) poop out. The rotting food/poop is called detritus. This is where the nitrate and phosphate comes from in your system. The idea is to keep N&P as low as possible but not quite at zero(corals need some to live and grow). So you need a way to remove the detritus. Water changes just remove a % of the N&P in the system but not the source(detritus). A protein skimmer helps remove some of the broken down(rotted) detritus. Although you don't need a protein skimmer to run a reef(I've never owned one in over 5 decades of having saltwater aquariums). So it's up to you to remove the detritus which means vacumming your gravel(wait until you see all the fine dust get kicked up from the gravel you didn't rinse before putting into your tank) ,blow the detritus off the rock,etc. You want to get the detritus up into the water column so it gets into your filter(now clean the filter). I long ago found this easier to do in bare bottom tanks and no longer have gravel. I do it this 2 times a week(only takes about 1/2 hour per tank (if that), I suck up what I can with a turkey baster, then turn up the pumps all the way and blow off the rocks. What settles on bottom I suck up with the turkey baster(oh, I squirt that into the filter)--repeat until about 95% of what was there is in the filter(I'll never get it all,well I could but it will just be back in 2-3 days when I'm going to do this all again). Now I clean the filter(floss/sock) by removing it and replacing with clean floss/sock. All this keeps my N&P low and I have little to no algae. What little I do get the snails(man snails sure poop a lot) more than keep up with(all right every week I put 1 or 2 drops of vibrant in to help them). If you don't want algae don't feed it.
with tap water until the water comes out clean, then rinse it again with RODI water and then put it in the tank. The bacteria on it will be fine.
Algae needs food to grow(nitrate and phosphate)these come into your aquarium by the food you feed. The fish eat the food(simple digestive system that doesn't absorb a lot out of the food) and poop. Some of the food gets missed by the fish and ends up in the gravel(stuck under the rocks,etc.)and rots(bacterial action)as does the 1/2 digest poop the fish and other animals(hermit crabs,snails,etc.) poop out. The rotting food/poop is called detritus. This is where the nitrate and phosphate comes from in your system. The idea is to keep N&P as low as possible but not quite at zero(corals need some to live and grow). So you need a way to remove the detritus. Water changes just remove a % of the N&P in the system but not the source(detritus). A protein skimmer helps remove some of the broken down(rotted) detritus. Although you don't need a protein skimmer to run a reef(I've never owned one in over 5 decades of having saltwater aquariums). So it's up to you to remove the detritus which means vacumming your gravel(wait until you see all the fine dust get kicked up from the gravel you didn't rinse before putting into your tank) ,blow the detritus off the rock,etc. You want to get the detritus up into the water column so it gets into your filter(now clean the filter). I long ago found this easier to do in bare bottom tanks and no longer have gravel. I do it this 2 times a week(only takes about 1/2 hour per tank (if that), I suck up what I can with a turkey baster, then turn up the pumps all the way and blow off the rocks. What settles on bottom I suck up with the turkey baster(oh, I squirt that into the filter)--repeat until about 95% of what was there is in the filter(I'll never get it all,well I could but it will just be back in 2-3 days when I'm going to do this all again). Now I clean the filter(floss/sock) by removing it and replacing with clean floss/sock. All this keeps my N&P low and I have little to no algae. What little I do get the snails(man snails sure poop a lot) more than keep up with(all right every week I put 1 or 2 drops of vibrant in to help them). If you don't want algae don't feed it.
