wasp

More than I want to think about. However, these guys, the first 2 fish I got this time around, as baby tank raised percs, in 2000, are still with me. Old pic they are a bit bigger now.

Been a long weekend, anybody who hasn't done it before do a bit of "chopping?" How did it go?

Kinda cosy isn't it? :lol: A good laugh Fay!

Here's something from another thread "A basic marine set up is like this. don't mess with anything less than a 3 foot tank. Smaller can be done but it's hard. 4 foot up is best. The filtration is done by bacteria that live in "liverock". Liverock is rock made from old coral skeleton and is porous. You should have somewhere around a kilogram of liverock to each 8 litres of water in the tank. The liverock is in fact dry and dead when you buy it at the LFS, but becomes "live" when after a few weeks in the tank it gets a bunch of bacteria living in it that eat the waste products from the fish. So one way to set up a tank is to put a thin layer of sand in the bottom. Put in the correct amount of rock, then fill with seawater. The seawater will need to have 10% freshwater added as our water is saltier then the ideal level. Then you need all this water to be moving, both to assist liverock filtration, and because most marine organisms need it to be moving. So you add a few pumps, enough to pump the entire volume of the tank ten times per hour (10 x times flow) This is the minimum, 20x or more is better. Then you need a marine grade light, most of the corals we keep are photosynthetic and need correct light. 1 watt of light per litre of water is a rough guide to the amount of light you need, but this may vary (upwards mostly) depending on what you are keeping. Don't use your old cannisters for biological filtration, leave that to the liverock. Cannisters and such do aerobic filtration only and do not supply the anearobic filtration important in a marine tank. Cannisters can be useful for using carbon, or phosphate removing resin though. The other thing you need is a protein skimmer. A good one is expensive, but the success of your tank will to quite a degree hinge on how good your protein skimming is. A good one will last you for life, get a needlewheel one they are the best. As I said you will hear other contradictory ideas and they will likely also work. I've just suggested one way to get a basic system going. Glad to hear you've done a lot of reading, that's the big thing, there's a lot of learning to do."

Layton you seem detirmined to make this another one of these I'm right, you're wrong things. I can see where you are coming from now, the way i worded the sentence you have a problem with did not make my meaning 100% clear, however I am sure you know what I meant. Would you have gone to so much trouble to disprove the sentence, if somebody other than me had said it? However, for your info only, you have missed the point I was trying to make, and to a degree, the point of the graph. Notice on your graph, the tank with the higher alkalinity, at a given Co2, had a higher PH than the tank with the lower alkalinity, but the same Co2. THAT is what is important, and is what I was trying to get across. To explain further, if you like graphs, check this one This graph shows the effect of increased alkalinity on pH when leaving the excess carbon dioxide unchanged. Get it? Now here is my statement you have a problem with To make my meaning more clear for you, I could add 4 words on the end, ie, to a certain level. So to get my sentence word perfect for you, I should have correctly said "BUT, the more KH, ( higher dkh number ), the more Co2 there has to be to lower PH to a certain level" Get it now? This is what the graph shows, and is also confirmed by my quote from Randy in the previous post "The pH of marine aquarium water is intimately tied to the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the water. It is also tied to the alkalinity." If it will make you feel any better & that you have proved something, I will admit my sentence you have found fault with was not worded 100% perfectly, if it had been a legal document. However I do think everyone except you would have taken it the way I meant it. So, if we are playing word games, you won If we are trying to help Fay with her PH, I hope that sentence & in fact that whole post may have been helpful. As for the argument that followed, word games, academia, and gobbledegook. :lol:

Layton, get over it.

Layton I was not referring to the "swing" as you call it, my concern was the relationship between KH, and Co2, and the fact that more KH will require more Co2 to drive down PH. This is more important than the temporary "swing" when introducing baking soda, which I only mentioned for the sake of completeness. I am surprised you are not sure about this. Also did not want to discuss further as I know you will argue. You have since proved this. However, as you insist, perhaps this will clear it up for you. I have put into bold the part you are not sure about, but quoted a larger piece as can get very concerned about getting the whole context. Quote "The pH of marine aquarium water is intimately tied to the amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the water. It is also tied to the alkalinity. In fact, if water is fully aerated (that is, it is in full equilibrium with normal air) then the pH is exactly determined by the carbonate alkalinity The higher the alkalinity, the higher the pH. Figure 1 shows this relationship for seawater equilibrated with normal air (350 ppm carbon dioxide), and equilibrated with air having extra carbon dioxide as might be present in a home (1000 ppm). Clearly, the pH is lower at any given alkalinity when the carbon dioxide is raised. It is this excess carbon dioxide that leads to most low pH problems for reef aquarists. Figure 1. The relationship between alkalinity and pH for seawater equilibrated with air containing normal and elevated carbon dioxide levels. The green dot shows natural seawater equilibrated with normal air, and the curves reflect the result that would be obtained if the alkalinity were artificially raised or lowered. A simple way to think of this relationship is as follows. Carbon dioxide in the air is present as CO2. When it dissolves into water, it becomes carbonic acid, H2CO3: 3. CO2 + H2O à H2CO3 The amount of H2CO3 in the water (when fully aerated) is not dependent on pH, but only on the amount of carbon dioxide in the air (and somewhat on other factors, such as temperature and salinity). For systems not at equilibrium with the air around them, which includes many reef aquaria, the aquarium can be thought of "as if" it were in equilibrium with a certain amount of CO2 in the air, which is effectively defined by the amount of H2CO3 in the water. Consequently, if an aquarium (or the air it is being equilibrated with) has "excess CO2" in it, that means that it has excess H2CO3. This excess H2CO3, in turn, means the pH will fall, as shown below. Seawater contains a mixture of carbonic acid, bicarbonate, and carbonate that are always in equilibrium with each other: 4. H2CO3 ßà H+ + HCO3- ßà 2H+ + CO3-- Equation 4 shows that if an aquarium has excess H2CO3, some if it dissociates (breaks apart) into more H+, HCO3-, and CO3--. Consequently, because of this extra H+, the pH will be lower than if there were less CO2/H2CO3 in it. If seawater has a huge excess of CO2, the pH can be as low as pH 4-6. Equilibrating my aquarium water with carbon dioxide at 1 atmosphere resulted in a pH of 5.0, although that low a value would be unlikely to be attained in a reef aquarium as the substrate and coral skeletons would buffer it as they dissolved. My aquarium water in equilibrium with 1 atmosphere of carbon dioxide and excess solid aragonite (a crystalline form of calcium carbonate that is the same form present in coral skeletons) resulted in a pH of 5.8. End quote" Please don't accuse me of being snide or any such inflamatory stupidity, I have posted this to help you.

Very informative link Reef. Absolutely agree the importance of feeding corals as I've seen so much difference since starting this myself.

Well as the people who make it have a financial interest, they must automatically be lying, right? :lol: :lol: At least that's the line of logic you applied during one of your zeobashing fits a while ago

Reef Roids Huh? Seems kind of expensive! What sort of food is it? Chemical or cellular based? Ha Ha! I was just kidding. I use Reef Roids also & think it is a good product.

Actually to be fair, I'll answer in a little more detail. My answer was brief because I showed you a link about this already when you were arguing on it maybe a year or so ago. You just dismissed it as the guy didn't know what he was on about, much in the same way you rubbished Mesocosm recently. I think that to you, this was justified, because you think that anybody who uses Zeovit, automatically does not know what they are talking about. :roll: Then there was several pages of pointless argument which was degrading & I wish I hadn't bothered. Doubt you have learned anything in the meantime & I can't be bothered with all that stupid argument again, it's already been done. So, if you feel otherwise, over to you. I can guarantee if we do this all over again it will be yet another thread you are in that will be moderated, and every time I get caught up in these I wish I hadn't.

Yes.

Here we go Exactly the same thing you were arguing about a while back!

Layton, as you pride yourself on your understanding of maths, how many euros for a drop? You do understand it is used by the drop?

Here we go!!! Layton thinks he found another problem Trouble is Layton, nobody I know buys it by the litre. I'm not sure what you're used to, but with Zeovit, less is often more!

No. That would be more than I've spent on ALL Zeovit products I've bought in the 2 years I've been running the system!!!! You REALLY have a problem with Zeovit Huh Layton? In fact it's so long since I bought my 50 ml bottle that I cannot remember the exact price, the stuff really lasts. I only know my total spend. Not sure what you're used to Layton, but CV is used by the drop, not the litre !!

Fay an easy way to look at it is KH raises PH, and Co2 drives it down. That's actually a little oversimplified, but for our purposes that's a good way to look at it. To look at it in a little more detail, KH under normal aquarium conditions raises PH to around 8.3. Then if there is too much Co2 in the water, it will drive PH down. BUT, the more KH, ( higher dkh number ), the more Co2 there has to be to lower PH. So having a higher alkalinity will hold PH up even when there is a lot of Co2. I should say that even that is a little simplistic but the understanding can be lost if I bog down in heaps of chemistry, that is enough to know. The only difference between adding baking soda, and baked baking soda, is that the baking soda initially releases some Co2 into the water, dropping PH. This is only temporary as the Co2 will diffuse at the water surface & then the baking soda will cause PH to rise. Baked baking soda is the same but does not release any Co2, so will not cause a temporary dip in PH. While there are some points in favour of running a high KH, be aware a high KH has also been shown in low nutrient systems, to be associated with RTN of SPS corals. For you at the moment a KH of 12.5 will be OK, however as you win the war on nutrients you should also lower KH and raise calcium, the correct balance between the two becomes more important the lower your nutrients. In fact for you at the moment, there will be little advantage in running a KH anything over 11, and at this level, a calcium of 380+. However over time if the other problems you have get solved it will be preferable to move more towards NSW levels, as Reef has stated.

The NZ agent is zeovitnz, you could drop him a pm.

Seachem put out an excellent one although I haven't seen them for a while.

Ha Ha! I noticed quite a difference with CV also. Of course I'm sure it's nothing but ammonia :lol: . To explain it scientifically :- My corals before CV = My corals after CV =

Wow that's pretty amazing, I thought those type of things took weeks / months to recover from!

What have you been doing to yourself Tel? Or should I say the Drs. been doing to you?

Pretty standard to someone of your experience, but to us common folks I thought it was pretty derned good!!

Sweet As! Clearly you are a man of the world! Did you like the video?

Don't worry you are not over generalising. You are over academia ising :lol: You do that a lot, but hey I guess that you've been at Uni for a few years and that does make people go like that. 30 years later you become an old fart like me who has forgotten most of it, and finds life can still go on anyhow