Fool me once... a comeback story

[scuglass]

Still not much activity on the chemistry front. I think I was expecting a magic bacteria fairy to smell the bio s. No such luck.

In the meantime I've found the red sea tests to be fairly simple and like them over the salifert ones I've used in the past (ten years ago).

Getting started on the stand "skin" and will get some photos out once I've cleaned up my workspace a bit.

Lastly I fixed an old 48 inch 6 bulb tek light I had kicking around. Threw it on so I could get some pictures. It felt real when I saw those beautiful blues light up for the first time. I don't know what I'm going to do at this point as I was leaning towards led to avoid bulb purchases. Also not too keen in a 48 inch fixture on a 40 inch tank. Wonder if a 36 inch setup would provide enough coverage.

Anyways. Photos.


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[kien]

Originally Posted by scuglass

Parameters after a couple days
...
Salinity 1.022 (at time of these tests, have brought up to 1.025)
...

Im not running a skimmer at the moment and my salinity was low would this cause my pH to be this low?

Yes, it's quite possible and likely that your lower pH is due to the lower salinity. Test it again to be sure :-) It's not that far off though. An acceptable range is somewhere from 7.8 to 8.4 and remember that pH of your tank will typically swing from morning till night as well.

edit: The lack of skimmer can also affect pH but this variable also depends on the CO2 content of the surrounding air around the skimmer. That is, if the C02 around the simmer is high, the skimmer could potentially lower the pH further. But generally, if you have lower CO2 around your skimmer, the injection of this air can raise your pH.