4 gallon pico thread

[asylumdown]

Post water change parameters:

dKH: 7.8 (this is actually making me think my test kit has gone off, when I tested the batch of water I'm using for water changes when I made it the dKH was closer to 9)
calcium: 405ppm
Magnesium: 1360ppm
Temp: 23.2
Ammonia: undetectable
Nitrite: Undetectable
Nitrate: Didn't test
Phosphate: didn't test
oh I forgot to mention in the last post, SG before and after the water change was exactly 1.025

Here is the tank at 1:58pm, 51 minutes after every coral in this tank was high and dry:

Only the goniopora has yet to fully re-inflate.

I had to go out and pick up furniture right after this, so I didn't get a chance to feed until 7:40, 20 minutes before the lights go out on this tank. I fed a mixture Coral Frenzy and AcansPlus mixed in a dish with 10ml of water so that it formed a relatively thick paste:


I ended up only using about half the syringe, but that's about 1/4 more than I usually ever feed at one time. I also fed the two brains several large pieces of PE mysis.





I usually take gobbling down as much as you can eat as a sign of coral health.

So - if my test kits are to be believed (I'm suspicious of the alkalinity), this water change altered my levels by:
dKH: +1.4
Calcium: +65ppm
Magnesium: +60ppm
Temp: -1.6 degrees
Ammonia: no change
Phos & nitrate: Not sure, but almost certainly drastically lowered them, probably took both down in to the undetectable range.

It doesn't appear to have acutely harmed the corals in any way, as they looked and were behaving completely normally (save for the goniopora) in less than an hour. The stomatella snails in there faired perfectly well, and judging by the number of worms that popped out of the rocks when I started feeding, they didn't seem to mind either.

The next question is whether or not this somehow 'shocked' the bacterial filtration system. I've added a good dump of organic matter that will shortly be converted to waste, so I'm going to test ammonia every day for the next week. I'll post the results here.

[Myka]

I like your water change system, and the bare bottom really make for a good plan on a pico tank. People often struggle with water quality in these pico tanks and you have it nailed down. That "kaleiascope" brain is WICKED. They are my favourite type of open brain.

As far as shocking the system goes, it appears as if you are probably not shocking the system. Consistency is always important, and if the tank is used to getting 100% waterchanges then that is consistent for that tank's inhabitants. I'm a firm believer that different systems react differently because of different maintenance. People can essentially achieve the very same thing (a thriving reef) by performing a myriad of different maintenance schedules. Even taking a peek through TOTM threads on ReefCentral or here on CanReen you will see very different maintenance habits.

However, if you're ever concerned, or you just want to experiment, you could always perform your waterchanges the same except add back 25-50% of the "old" saltwater. You would still get a thorough clean. I would suggest you put the water to reuse in a bucket on its own rather than allowing the corals to sit in it though. I'm not sure that is clear... so you would have say 50% of the water in one clean bucket and 50% of the water in the bucket holding the corals, then clean tank, add corals to tank, add water to tank from the clean bucket, and toss the water from the bucket that held the corals.

You're definitely making me take a second look at the 5-gallon Fluval tank I have sitting in a closet...