New Tank

[liamblair1987]

hey guys. got a new tank recently...i did have a 4 foot tank but decided to start of small and go with a 10 gallon tank with some small fish and corals.

ive chucked about 4.3kgs of live rock in and about an inch of crushed coral. so far found some cool little featherduster type things appear from the rock.

so far its been cycling for a week and a half and the tank parameters read like this

salinity - 1.024
temp. - ranging from 25.5 - 27C
P.H. - 8.3
NO2 - 0.0
NO3 - 20
Carbonate Hardness - 160

so far everything is going pretty swell..i live near a beach and grab my water from there. alot of water gets passed through and i dont pick the water from a stagnant spot.

the problem i have at the moment is with the temp. its fluctuating too much i think during the day maybe? is that 1 1/2 degrees from morning to night and back again way too much??

whats the best solution to fix this without having to get a chiller?
anything ive missed out on just drop us a helpful hint.
ta.

[liamblair1987]

also is my carbonate hardness too low??

[liamblair1987]

anyone at all?

[Bonneville08]

What is the temperature in your house? 77.9 f is not bad, but 80.6 is getting up there a little bit (I've heard of worse). Try a fan across the top of the water and be ready to make up the evaporation with fresh water. You could lower the temperature in the house if you have AC and can afford it.
A carbonate hardness of 160 ppm CaCO3 is 3.2 meq/l or 8.96 dKH in alkalinity(not many people use the ppm CaCO3 anymore, I had to look up the conversion to figure it out). But the reading is right in the ballpark. You could bump it up slowly to 200 ppm without causing any harm if you're worried about pH fluctuation.
Hope this helps

[Tswifty]

That swing is nothing... and 80.6 isn't high at all.

I run my tank 80-82, and it drops as low as 77-78 at night.

[Bonneville08]

Sorry, I just noticed you're in Australia. I wondered why you used celcius. I had to convert that too. 77.9F is 25.5C and 80.6F is 27C.

[liamblair1987]

haha yeah im an aussie bloke..ive got farenheit on the temp as well..just easier using celsius..i had a fan..knocked it across the top of the tank..cooled it down but not too much thankfully...just worried about summer..especially where i live as it gets warm in the summer..(gold coast)

ive got saltwater in one of my jugs on standby for such evaporation. the best thing about this saltwater straight from the ocean is its pretty much good to go as soon as u chuck it in the tank!

[Bonneville08]

Please do not replace water lost due to evaporation with saltwater. You only want to use fresh water, preferably RO or DI. If you do this for too long, your salinity is going to go up, especially if you use the fan.
As far as temperature goes, I'm going to have to disagree with Tswifty8 on this. Your aquarium may very well survive at those temperatures, but it is risky: Brown Jelly disease is common with temperature over 80F , Corals do not expand as well with temperature over 80F, Wide fluctuations in temperature are commonly associated with Cryptocaryon irritans infections in fish. Higher temperature causes lower oxygen levels while also raising fish metabolism (kind of a double whammy). You should consider 27C to be your upper limit.
I did not pull this information out of my lower GI tract, like the conversion from ppm CaCO3 to alkalinity, I checked my library and looked this up in a few books. My reference for most of my disagreement comes from "The Reef Aquarium" by Julian Sprung and Charles Delbeek. My reference for the alkalinity is "Water Quality Guidelines for Marine Aquariums" by Bob Goemans.
A chiller on a ten gallon aquarium is an expensive proposition, see how the fan works.
Good luck

[Tswifty]

Originally posted by Bonneville08
As far as temperature goes, I'm going to have to disagree with Tswifty8 on this.

You can dissagree all you want... but your wrong.

Most of what you stated as "associated with higher temps" is also inaccurate. The ones I know off hand that are inaccurate are the O2 levels, coral polyp extenstion, and ich...

I'll try and dig up the information for you.

[Tswifty]

Originally posted by Bonneville08
Please do not replace water lost due to evaporation with saltwater. You only want to use fresh water, preferably RO or DI. If you do this for too long, your salinity is going to go up...

However, this is correct.

[greenbean36191]

Brown Jelly disease is common with temperature over 80F , Corals do not expand as well with temperature over 80F.

These are both anecdotal. There has been some association shown with some diseases and temperature, but these are elevated temperatures meaning unusually high. 80 isn't even close to fitting that bill. There's no demonstrated correlation between temperature and polyp extension or between polyp extension and health.

Wide fluctuations in temperature are commonly associated with Cryptocaryon irritans infections in fish.

Again, this is commonly claimed, but has never been shown. The only association demonstrated between temperature fluctuations and disease in fish has been with FW or temperate fish. Again these are associated with fluctuations the animals wouldn't experience in the wild.

Higher temperature causes lower oxygen levels while also raising fish metabolism (kind of a double whammy).

Yes and no. This is a whole lot more complicated. Higher temperatures do result in lower oxygen at saturation. However, over the range of reef temps, the difference is nearly negligible. Even at 90 deg F, the saturation point is still more than 200% of the safe limit. Reef animals are also highly tolerant of hypoxia as it is a regular occurrence on the reef. Reef fish can get down to 12-20% of saturation with no issues. Below this they actually lower their respiration rate and conserve oxygen. Eric Borneman has done tests on several different setups and found that none of them even approached these low saturation values.

Also, how temperature affects respiration isn't clear. It's not as simple as warmer temperatures= more metabolism. This ignores acclimatization, which we know occurs. This means that if you have an animal that's acclimatized to 77 degrees and one that's acclimatized to 83, they could actually have the same resting respiration rate. We also know that the stress threshold is a product of acclimatization too, not genetics. That means that by lowering the temperature, you are not increasing your margin of error. The safe upper temperature is lowered as well. The rule of thumb is that stress occurs at 2-4 deg F above the normal maximum temp, whether that temp is 78 or 86.

Basically what this means is that yes, there is slightly less oxygen, but the difference due to saturation and changes in metabolism is very small. If temperature ever solves or creates an oxygenation issue, that's a sign of a majorly overstocked tank. Even in emergencies where there is no oxygenation, the difference you can expect to see dependent on temperature is seconds to minutes, not hours.

As for what kind of temperature is best for these animals, it's close to what they're found at in nature. The average yearly range of temps where reefs occur is 77-86 with an overall average of 82. The center of coral diversity has an average temp of around 83. For the corals whose thermal optima (the temp they do best at) has been determined, most fall between 82-84.

Fluctuations are a regular and important part of the reef environment. Typically they're in the range of 3-5 degrees per day, but in or near shallow, enclosed areas like lagoons, or on high latitude reefs they can be around 15 degrees per day. They occur quickly. It's documented that minute-to-minute variations are often as much as half of the yearly variation. There is no indication that they're a source of stress, nor would you expect them to be. In fact they have been shown to be important in moderating the stress response in corals. In other words, fluctuating temperatures make the animals less prone to stress. Fluctuations are also important in regulating the reproductive cycles of many of our animals.

There is no good reason to believe that keeping a tank either cooler than natural or more stable than natural offers any real benefit.

[Bonneville08]

I'm not going to argue over anything written here, excuse me for disagreeing. I thought I could be helpful by passing on the information that I have gathered from quite a few years of reading about our hobby. Almost all of the information in our hobby is anecdotal and opinion based. I did not see the harm in forwarding the opinions of people I consider to be giants in our hobby. I have yet to go wrong following their advice, but I stand corrected on this issue.

[Johnny C]

I'm also starting my first SW... best of luck!

[liamblair1987]

so does this mean that when the water evaporates i am going to have to purchase a RO/DI unit?

is it possible to get a bucket of fresh water..then add a tiny bit of saltwater..then add the stuff to neutralize the chlorine? would this work? say like 3 or 4 parts fresh to one part salt as to not raise the salinity levels??

[liamblair1987]

also i want to culture some copepods..do they automatically come in off the live rock? how do i know if i have some there? and is it possible to add some or make the population larger?

[liamblair1987]

anything at all?

[Tswifty]

Originally posted by liamblair1987
so does this mean that when the water evaporates i am going to have to purchase a RO/DI unit?

is it possible to get a bucket of fresh water..then add a tiny bit of saltwater..then add the stuff to neutralize the chlorine? would this work? say like 3 or 4 parts fresh to one part salt as to not raise the salinity levels??

Why would you add any part salt water?

You add 100% freshwater when you top off.

RO/DI would be best, but you can you use tap water w/ some type of tap water conditioner... but it's less than desired.

[liamblair1987]

ahh of course because the salt water gets evaporated but most of the salt and minerals stay behind right? so basically if i just top off with fresh water it should stay at pretty much same salinity levels?


also with the copepods..any help there at all? im still a bit confused about them