Monday, September 9, 2013

Maintenance Day

Did some much needed maintenance today.  I did a fair-sized water change of 40 gallons.  Rather than just swapping out water, however, I decided to siphon out the detritus from sand bed, using that water as my exchange water.  I removed so much detritus, I'm surprised my tank hadn't crashed before.  I didn't take a Nitrate reading beforehand, however, I'm sure it's much lower now.

As well, the salinity in the tank was at 1.016, which is really low considering the optimal salinity is 1.024.  Doing the big water change helped increase the salinity.  Afterwards, it rose to 1.018.  This is a good start, as it needs to climb gradually to 1.024.  This can be achieved by topping off my water with saltwater, rather than purified water.

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