Depressing water test news!

[DonW]

Cleaning as far as what? The SB is finer sand so if i aim a powerhead at it it blows everywhere

suck n stir, is just part of having a young sand bed. Or collect it before it hits the sand.

Don

 

[joker577]

I'm hoping since my last 7 gallons of water change (over a week) have been RO and distilled water, it will lower

 

[OmarD]

Hu! is it magic now? Its the most wacked out of balance salt Ive ever used, not to mention the N and P issues.

Don

re: Oceanic

Amen...is like they gave up everything to keep extraordinarily high CA levels...use something else.

 

[joker577]

I'm going to return the Oceanic...I bought 2 7 pound bags so i'll finish this one off then switch to instant ocean...I was at reef crystals which is instant ocean lol

 

[theJ]

Cleaning as far as what? The SB is finer sand so if i aim a powerhead at it it blows everywhere

Ahh, the art of maintaining flow w/sand... Patience and planning will go a long way here. It took a while, but I got the flow down in our tank half decently. It took about 2 days actually, after we added 2 seio 820s in the 58g. I just had to make small movements with the powerheads and pay close attention to every square inch of sand in the tank. If something moved, I would wait a while and see if it continued to move. If it did, I would make a small (millimeters here...) adjustment to the PH until that spot stopped moving. Some other spot would start to stir so I would repeat the process.

This is why it took 2 days to make sure it was down pat, but the sand still moves a bit, just doesn't kick up and into the water column. Keeping it moving just barely will help to stop detritus from settling and cut down on your dino algaes. Although, it is hard to hit every corner with 2 PHs (or even 3). We have 1 dead spot in the corner that I have to get at with a turkey baster every so often.

The point is, your sand is going to kick up and blow everywhere if your flow is digging into the sand bed. If it is, make small adjustments until the sand is just barely dancing a bit. Wait overnight or so and see if you have huge mounds of sand, if so, make more adjustments. Its never going to be perfect, but you can get close

 

[joker577]

Well one is aimed up near the water for surface agitation and to hit off the glass in the front, bouncing of the glass and going around the tank, same with the other but just bouncing off the glass