Alot of work ahead of me...

[Oceanicsublimat]

Hi all.. It's been a while since I posted here, hope everyone has been doin great. My stepdad bought a SW tank from a friend of his to help him out and gave it to me. This is gonna be a big project. He has a puffer fish some hermits and a gorilla crab in there. The tank looks awful, cyano all over the place, the water stinks, no coralline on the rock (which there is only 40lbs of anyways) I asked the guy what was his SG at and he scratched his head and said he didn't know it had been a long time since he checked it LOL... I was like oh cool, thought to myself what an idiot.. He also never changed his water in any of his tanks.. he has quite a few. In a minute, after my coffee, I"m gonna get up and check the water parameters and see what kind of shape I'm in and to post them here in this thread. I'm gonna need some good advice and I know that I can get the best here..

 

[Hara]

we're here to help!

 

[Brenden]

Thats right we are the koala brothers. Sorry I hear my little boy watching the TV downstairs and right as I read Hara's comment they said the same thing.

 

[Oceanicsublimat]

LOL..thanks for any help u can give me guys... Ok so tested the water.. sigh..

Ammonia slight maybe

PH...7.8
Trates are off the charts
specific gravity is like 1.16 or something..I have a refractometer and when I saw it was below 1.20 I stopped looking..
ammonia...is about .50

I only have about 10 gals of water made up..and the specific gravity of that is 1.025 or 34 ppt...
my question is this.. how much water should I change out and should I put more water in to closely get to the SG of the tank?

tank specifics are this... 55gal, 40lbs?? of lr, 40lbs?? sand...and a wet/dry sump...
again..thanks for any help.. I don't want this little puffer to die.. he's a tough lil guy

 

[JG]

Fluorescent bulbs are coated with a powder called phosphors. The "black lights" do not have these. Instead they have a purple colored glass.

The idea in a regular fluorescent bulb there is usually Mercury vapor that emits UV light when in a high energy state. The UV light emitted is absorbed by the phosphor coating on the inside of the glass. The electrons in the phosphors begin to tap dance around the atoms and re-emit light in the visible wavelengths. The wavelengths emitted depend on the phosphors used. The UV really does not make it through the bulb.

Your friends blacklight does not have these phosphors and therefore is emitting in the purple visible spectrum ( a little bit), but mostly in the UV range, which you cannot see. Most blacklights emit in the UVA range which is the least energetic of the UV range.

Will it be the same as Actinic light - no.
Will it harm the critters - possibly.
Will it be beneficial - I doubt it.

Hope this helps you to explain it to your buddy.

JG

 

[JG]

Sorry - I seem to have posted in the wrong place.

JG

 

[Hara]

I would change out one, 5 gallon bucket per day, to slowly bring the salinity back up. When you add the water back, add it about the rate of a gallon per hour. After the salinity has reached the level you want it to be, I would then do a 40% water change to start getting rid of the nitrates. This will also give you a chance to be siphoning off cyano with every bucket of water that you change out. Doing water changes will also help bring the ph back up slowly.

 

[Oceanicsublimat]

thank u for ur advice.. I did a 40% water change yesterday.. because the lil guy didn't look so hot.. he's much better today.. made up some water today.. gonna start bringin' up the salinity as u just said and then do another big water change.. Prolly gonna order some good lights and more deadrock and maybe some lr.com rock later...