mixing salt and ading aragonite *on startup*

[turboTSI]

I am wondering I bought some aragonite and wa sthinking of adding it to the tank and begin getting things started.... now do u guys recomend rinsing it out first before adding it to the tank or no? and if so should I use the bottled water I have for the tank or is it ok to use my tap water.. although the tap has 20ppm trAtes etc



Next.... obviously I am just adding everything.. now do u guys recomend mixing the salt into the water first like in a seperate jug or can I just add the water and salt and have my powerheads on and be fine since I have along timre for it all to setup?

I know when u do a waterchange u need to mix the salt first.. but I was not sure if I shoudl now since I am just settig it up



Dave

 

[dralarms]

When I forst set my tank up I put in the cc, then the water and then the salt. For some reason the sg alway fluctuated, as if there was salt trapped in the cc. I have since switched to sand and no longer just dump it in. I will always mix up my salt & water before putting it in any tank.

 

[turboTSI]

ok sounds good thx alot......

 

[dralarms]

Your welcome. That's what we are here for.

 

[divemasterjim]

Rinse your aragonite first !!! when i set up my tank i dint rinse it and it was so cloudy, every time i moved somthing it got cloudy so i drained the tank and pulled it all out and rinsed it. never had any problems since

 

[sumphead]

not so fast divemasterjim. It is a simply a matter of choice. There are pros and cons to almost every action in aquariua which brings up the addage: Nothing good happems fast. You can rinse your sand if you like which will indeed settel faster than dry sand. However if you using your sand bed as part of your filtration then keeping the finer particles of sand without rinsing them away will add greatly to your biological capacity. The more and finer particles are the more surface area bacteria has to attach, thus increasing your natural filtration. Again it will simply take longer to settle, but as the bacteria adhears to the sand and dust particles during your cycle it will weigh down and settle nicely. All that just to say it's a matter of preference.

R-

 

[turboTSI]

ok sounds good I think I wont rinse it... now my other question is will I have a problem if I add this 40lbs now and the water salt etc.... then later add more sand to make a deeper bed before I lay rock... or should I add all the sand at one time... I mean I will get more sand in like 2 weeks so it will still be plenty of time before I add fish or live rock..

Dave

 

[dralarms]

You should be fine.

 

[divemasterjim]

Hey my bad I used CC and it was very dusty in my tank so i rinsed it never had the dust or cloud problem again

 

[turboTSI]

ah ok.... cool thx

Dave

 

[dralarms]

Hey my bad I used CC and it was very dusty in my tank so i rinsed it never had the dust or cloud problem again

You are supposed to rinse CC.

 

[bound_for_obx]

For what its worth, I didn't rinse my southdown. But I did put a piece of aluminum foil cut to the same size as the tank over the sand before I started carefully filling it. When I was done I could just see through the the tank end to end. And the water was pretty darn clear after 48 hours. Good luck
Hint: If you slightly crumple the foil it will float nicely on top of the water as you fill the tank!

 

[turboTSI]

im not worried about cloudyness I wont have filtration or LR for a couple weeks

Dave