Khuligirl's 20 long nano reef build

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Oh my fish that is so cool... Wow my phone just autocorrected that LOL, was supposed to be *Gosh*. I love that idea! Maybe some day after I have a few extra bucks to spend and want to spoil myself ;)


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You would never believe how much time I spent and water I used washing this sand
http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums...8-ADD7-4B39-8979-2CEF1F894FD1_zpsebsyptjo.jpg
At first the water washing out of it looked like milk. After washing it with the hose for 30 minutes and probably doubling my parents water bill, it looked like watery milk and I gave up. Anyone know how long it'll take to clear?
I still have freshwater in it right now, so when I siphon that all out and replace it with salt I'm guessing that'll help a bit.
Also, I think I got too much sand. I have a good 4" sand bed in there. I read somewhere you want 1.5-2x the amount of substrate in lbs as you have gallons of water. A substrate calculator told me I would need 40lbs to get 2" deep- I guess I know not to trust those anymore. I got 30 lbs of sand but I think 20 or even 15 would have been fine.


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It should clear overnight. Also, the 4 inch sandbed is fine but as the tank matures you don't want to disturb it. Deep sand beds do have a bacterial benefit and it can help with the filtration of wastes.
 
Oh really? I thought not vacuuming the substrate would cause high nitrates. Well that's good news:)


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Definitely don't vaccum the sandbed. It basically becomes it's own ecosystem. Very different than freshwater bottoms :)


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Haha I'm still learning how different they really are:)
At work we sand vacuum all our SW stock tanks... Should we not be doing this? We have issues with really high nitrates so could that be contributing to the problem?


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In a way, yes. You are eliminating beneficial bacteria by removing sand through siphoning.
 
But no bacteria eliminates nitrates right? It's the end of the chain. I thought only plants and WCs could do that?


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Exactly. In salt we do have certain ways to eliminate or reduce nitrates. These include refugiums, reactor/skimmer combo, etc.

In your small system, you should only have to worry about weekly water changes. That'll keep you in check better than anything else.
 
There are anaerobic bacteria in sw that help remove nitrates as well as skimmers, macroalgae and such. I just wouldn't mess around with vacuuming sand


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Alright that's fine with me, just less work ;)
Yes I plan to do weekly 25% WCs, which will be 5g. I found out Walmart sells RO water for 37 cents a gallon. Anyone have experience using their water?


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You want ro/di not just ro. You'd be better off with distilled than the plain ro IMHO
 
Oh ok. Well at work we just have an RO unit I believe, maybe that's part of our problems.
I don't know where to get RO/DI :( and I really cant justify buying my own unit right now. Maybe in a few months.
My parents are very critical of my aquarium keeping hobby, so I have to make this look as easy and as inexpensive as possible lol.
If RO gets you 0 TDS, what's the difference between that and it being distilled as well?
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RODI is Reverse Osmosis DeIonized water.
DI does exactly what it sounds like. Removes the harmful ions in water
Just RO won't get rid of phosphorous a lot of the times, and other things.
Distilled has been given something closer to ro/di.
 
Oh ok. Well maybe we do have RODI at work and everyone just calls it RO for short, because I know we get 0 TDS, which would mean absolutely nothing in the water besides water molecules, correct?

Alright my tank is officially a SW tank! Just filled it up :)


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Khuligirl93 said:
Oh ok. Well maybe we do have RODI at work and everyone just calls it RO for short, because I know we get 0 TDS, which would mean absolutely nothing in the water besides water molecules, correct?

Alright my tank is officially a SW tank! Just filled it up :)


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Click to expand...

Correct. And i would get an 165W LED instead of a 120W. It's the exact same price so you might as well get the bigger one.
 
Today is an exciting day! My tank cleared, I got my first piece of live "rock", got some free refugium plant from work that someone brought in but the store didn't want it, aaaand my jebaos came :)))
http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums...6-FD21-4B60-A053-E38832AB655C_zpsok7olgwa.jpg
My coworker told me this was a skeleton of some type if tube coral? I just thought it looked awesome and it was really lightweight ;)
http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums...7-5C3E-47B4-8FEA-128D4F7D6096_zpswtvzgawh.jpg
Here's the plant, they told me but I forgot the name. I have a whole sandwich bag of it. It has lots of baby serpent stars in it and various hitchhikers. Good or bad? And can I add this to my tank for a "silent cycle" like FW? http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums...9-4BD3-47E9-A56A-E53904D32D70_zps0zdnsmcf.jpg
As soon as I finish posting I'm going to play around with these :)
http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums...5-75FA-437A-AD3F-583485D2F7D6_zpsclcyuiik.jpg


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I've been trying to figure out the best place to get it for a good price. I'm gonna check out a couple places on Monday or Tuesday, each are about 45 mins away.
Someone told me about Marco rock today, says he won't use anything else.


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