Sniperhank
Giant Clam Addict
Then it can't be the tests...possibly something decaying from the 7ppm tds reading from the walmart water? I'm running out of ideas :/
reefrunner69 said:I changed approx. 13 - 14 gallons last night, cleaning the sand in the fuge and removed all the rock and cleaned the sand under and behind the rock. I went to the LFS today, took a water sample and the told me, ammonia was good, nitrites were elevated (they did not give numbers but I looked at the nitrite and the scale they were using and it was .2ppm) ph was 8.0. When I told the LFS owner I was doing water changes he told me each water change retarded the cycle by two weeks. I really wish someone would open another shop and carry saltwater fish and supplies. I was going to buy my qt tank and glass tops from him, instead he got me irritated enough to just leave. I realize there is a debate on whether water changes will slow a cycle (I'm in the camp that it doesn't), but really...after 3 months of waiting, seems like its time to shake things up, rather than spout the dogma from 10 years ago.
I came home, tested and got
Salinity 35ppt
Ammonia < .5 but not quite .25ppm
Nitrite < .5 but not quite .25
Ph 8.0
Nitrate 80ppm
My bucket of freshly mixed salt reads
Salinity 35ppt
Ammonia ~ .25ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 0ppm
Ph 8.0
My plans are to continue 50% water changes until the nitrates hit pretty close to 0 and see where we're at. Once the nitrates are lower I am going to use the water from one of the 10g water changes to set up my quarantine and start cycling it, I sure hope that goes better than this one.