Tank Journal Archive

[Lesley]

Hi, just thought I would let you know that we got the courage to do our first real salt water change.
Went down to the beach today and gathered 140 liters of sparkling sea water, took home aerated and heated it and just completed the change. We didn't do our normal 250 liter change because we were worried it might shock the fish and corals so we only used the 140 liters collected.
I am now watching the tank like a hawk, hoping that we haven't killed everything. Will do all water parameters in about an hour or so. I did the whole range of tests just before the change. It will be very interesting to see what impact it has had if any.
Crossing fingers that it works well and we can start doing larger changes in the future lol.

 

[Bdear22]

It won't have any negative effect on your corals. I don't even bother heating it anymore haha

 

[Lesley]

It won't have any negative effect on your corals. I don't even bother heating it anymore haha

Thats very interesting, when we got the water home it was at 18.5 degrees and salinity of 1.032 after heating it to 25.5 salinity was 1.029. Did you ever find that sort of difference in the salinity ?
I added 30 liters of RODI to bring it back to the 1.026 we normally run. And after change was spot on. pheww

 

[ezza]

This is helpful info... http://www.theaquariumsolution.com/measuring-salinity-and-specific-gravity-your-aquarium

This is the bigger picture scientific explanation of why salt water is the way it is.. http://marinebio.org/oceans/temperature.asp

 

[Bdear22]

What she said ^^

 

[ezza]

Sorry, I was in the middle of 5 km that ended at 3 and thus multitasking on an iPad! I also beat my husband at words with friends... 403! Personal best.