Alright, it's Sunday and I just finished a 10 gallon water change on the tank. As stated earlier in this thread, I do not feel that I need to continue with the 20 gallon changes since my phosphate and nitrate are quite low. So, I made up 20 gallons and used 10 of it this weekend and will use the other 10 next weekend. Saves some work, and measuring this is super easy this way.
So lets chat about what has me Happy, Sad, and a little worries.
I had a chat with Matt and I'll admit it, I pretty much dropped the aquarium hobby like it was hot, and I did not research anything for a very long time. Well, in this time, some major changes have happened. The one that I'm referring to is the decision of Hawaii to stop ALL outbound fish shipments. This means if you wanted a fish that was caught in Hawaii, that fish just got VERY expensive.
Case in point, The Yellow Tang was a $36 fish. Since this has come down from Hawaii, the Yellow Tang that was caught in Hawaii is now $450. Don't believe me, check out
THIS LINK to Live Aquaria. Just in case the price changes in the future, and it likely will, I have taking an image of the page for the price....
So that has me happy since I own a Yellow Tang. I can sell him for a profit (I can, but I won't). I'm sad that after decades of people owning this very hardy fish, now it is just stupid expensive. And I'm worried because this could happen to any other fish out there which would push out a lot of people from the hobby. I know I'm never going to spend $450 on a fish or coral. With that said though, if you REALLY want a Yellow Tang, They are very likely to survive in your tank unlike other expensive fish that are for experts only.
So enough about the bad news, let's move on....
Today I did my water change as stated above, but yesterday I checked all of my parameters. And, I took pictures because I'm just not believing what I'm seeing.
Here is my Alkalinity test. I did not dose anything since last weekend so that I could see what the tank was using up. Last weekend I tested the Alkalinity and it was 8.9dKH. When I checked it yesterday, it was 8.0dKH. I'm just going to round that off to 1.0dKH a week as things are always growing. Using Soda Ash to dose, I will need 10.2ml each day. This would be easy enough with a 1.1ml/min dosing pump and I can dose it throughout the night so that the PH doesn't spike like it did last night when I tested it lol. Dumping in 70ml of soda ash raises the tank about 0.2ph, which is the max you want to raise it. So I will just invest in a doser and do it that way.
The Calcium last week was 477, which is a little high. I checked it this week, and it's 450, which is perfect. I did not dose any Calcium this weekend and I just let the water change add a little to the water (if any as it should also be at 450, but I have not tested it yet since I'm about to change salts).
Next are the two that I'm not really believing, but back to back tests have provided the same results.
First is the Nitrates. I did a test last weekend with the Low Range (LR) tester, and that tester is horribly complicated to test, but I did it just to see what it said (all of this is above as well, in detail). The LR checker gave me 1.25. The next day I received my new High Range (HR) tester and I did another test. On this test I received a 2.0. Still VERY good from what I'm used to. So I tested it yesterday, and I received a 1.2, right there with what the LR showed last week (there is a pretty broad margin for error). Anything under 5 and I'm happy!
And last is Phosphate. This is a LR checker and when I tested last week, I received a reading of 0.00. Matt straight up said that was impossible, and I advised my other kit was showing the same thing. So this week I tested it and I received a 0.04. Note, I have fed the fish every day rather than every 2 or 3 days like I usually do. But I'm happy to see that I do have some phosphates now so that the corals can feed on it to color up nicely.
So all in all everything about the tank is doing fantastic now. Fish are happy, corals are happy, sand and glass are mostly staying clean and I have to do very little to the tank. I did purchase a new glass cleaner called a "Flipper" which has a pad on one side for regular algae, and a blade on the other for coralline algae. The blade also has an extended reach, so I can reach above or below the trim on the tank to clean there as well now. I used to have to do this by hand. Definitely worth the $37 I paid for it on Amazon.
Amazon product
So, that's this weeks up date. I'm still pondering what I'm going to do about a sump because I find it quite hard to let go of over $500 for a plastic box...