[chatterboxbaby82]

I came home last night and the tank lights were still on . i havent put them on a timer yet as well its still cycling and didnt figure it mattered much. well its blinding lol. i walk up to the house and it lights up two rooms haha. anyways i had to put glass tops on cause it as splashing on the lens of the lights after a short time it was bad i have spray that is suppose to help keep it from doing that but seems to work best on glass then acrylic. Also the water evaporates so fast in this house i have to refill my sump every other day. It is funny how there is little salt creep on top but my sump is always covered in it. always cleaning that stuff off. Now i just gotta get the skimmer out of the sump to replace the pump. All my readings are great.

Ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 10-20 *just started water changes last week.* done 2 4g changes so far.
ph 8.4
temp 80
sg .025
phos 0
I love the hose attached to the pump that i basiclyu turn on and it pulls the water out. Unless i wanna syphon the sand i just do that takes 5 mins to take it out and add. I just wanted to ask how many snails would u use in a 75g tank. and what type what else is good with cleaning up detrius i know some snails clean the sand some the glass. I hav a peperment shrimp in the main tank with a urchin would the urchin help u think. or am i just at thepoint of just waiting for it to go away without the cuc. i wont be having any livestock til june since were going on vacation. Im not sure what im gonna do with the smaller tank i feed it frozen brine *the dragon goby is a pig* every other day and were gone for 7 days the person watching the tank can throw flake food in but what abotu him will he be okay with picking til i get back or should i show her how to do it at least one time. hes so trained i cant use a baster to blow off my rocks he thinks its feeding time lol. any suggestions would be great.

 

[Doug1]

"nitrates 10-20 *just started water changes last week.* done 2 4g changes so far."

Small water changes like this are not going to show you an noticable drop in nitrate values, 4g is less than 10% of your volume so diluting the tank by that much you probablt won't detect the difference in reading on your test kit.
This is the 75 that is just set up right? Since you have nothing in it, I would guess that the nitrate is coming from stuff on the live rock. It's important to keep that stuff from accumulating and remove it as soon and much as possible. Even doing a 50% water change with the ongoing detritous buildup, playing catchup is going to be hard since you have stuff going thru the waste cycle constantly, and only doing occasional water changes, HTH

 

[chatterboxbaby82]

its only been up about 3 weeks. it jsut recently went went down to 0 amm. and 0 nitrites. so i expected the nitrates to go up i really didnt expect to see 0 or really low nitrates in 3 weeks with almost all new stuff.

 

[Doug1]

its only been up about 3 weeks. it jsut recently went went down to 0 amm. and 0 nitrites. so i expected the nitrates to go up i really didnt expect to see 0 or really low nitrates in 3 weeks with almost all new stuff.

OK, I understand Since you are going to sit on the tank till after june, you are going to be ahead of the game later on, esp if you are really good about cleaning all the yuckies off the live rock to keep the nitrates from going off the chart as well as getting rid of phosphate sources. Over the next couple months the bacteria that live in the rock should multiply and start working on converting nitrate to free nitrogen and the levels will start to drop, IF you are patient and don't start loading the system up right away

 

[chatterboxbaby82]

yeah we decided with family watching the tank but knowing really nothing about saltwater we were deff. better off waiting til after we returned to look into any stocking. i do blow off th rocks and suck out some stuff i used like a filter type sock to clean out the bigger debree for a while looking better now. nitrates were higher. I drain out some water but i suck out some of the *crud* from the tank itself. the socks are off the tank now i left them for 2 to 3 days collecting crud that missed the skimmer and was coming back in and its looking good. ... thanks for your advice and comments.

 

[benny z]

go to a fast food joint and get some small side portion cups with lids. portion out your food for the week into the cups and put them in your freezer. this way all your tank-sitter needs to do is add tank water to the cup to thaw it and dump it in.

i do this for all of my feedings - i've got a tray with spaces for two feedings twice daily. i double-stack the cups so that i make up food for two weeks at a time - works out very nicely...if you have a digital scale you can even measure the portions precisely.

a local club member is a cabinet builder and made this tray for me out of a composite material. it is cnc machined and was made to fit exactly on a freezer shelf in my fridge. i bought a spare shelf off ebay for $15 to be dedicated to the tray so my wife would consent.

cheers!
- ben

 

[chatterboxbaby82]

Thats a good idea i only need feedings for 3 maybe 4 days but i think ill take this idea and use part of it to keep some separate for those days thanks.

 

[Doug1]

Thats a really good Idea Benny has, Way too many horror stories of fishsitters "feeling sorry" for the poor fishies and way over feeding, yah know what happens then

Good on keeping up with the tanks maint, it WILL be better in the long run

 

[aquawolf]

Glad to hear things are going well for you. Is this set of lights holding up better than the last one did?

Benny, that food tray is a very good idea. Thanks for posting that.

 

[chatterboxbaby82]

what do u mean about the lights. i think im missing something

 

[aquawolf]

Didn't you have a problem where the bracket on your light fixture broke? I may be confusing you with someone else, like that's never happened before. :funny: