jbharlan91

Thanks for all of the good information! I will give the turkey baster and siphoning a try - so far there isn't any on the rock, just sand, glass and 2 of the corals.

Okay, another question pertaining to manually removing it. There's not a lot of space between the rock in my aquarium and the glass, definitely not enough for me to get my siphon hoze nozzle in there. Are there smaller tip siphons you can use to siphon the gravel in salt water tanks? Is it a good/bad thing to do to siphon the sand? I have noticed that the red extends down in to the sand in some areas.

Okay, if it doesn't clear up with water change or gets worse, I'll check out the chemiclean. Thanks!

We've got a lot of snails, they don't make a dent in it. Also, I don't think it's at the point that I would consider bad, I was just concerned that it seemed to be creeping up the base of those 2 corals. Will it hurt the corals? If not, I'm not too worried about it, and will try more frequent water changes and cutting back on the lighting. I don't really want to add chemicals unless it's truly a big problem, which it isn't right now. I've got a lawnmower blenny, a peppermint shrimp, one other type of shrimp, lots of snails and quite a few hermit crabs to clean stuff up. There is also a bristle worm in the back somewhere.

We're starting to get a build up of what looks like the red cyanobacteria on our sand bed and climbing up the glass a bit. I haven't been too concerned about it, but then I noticed that it seems to be climbing up 2 of our corals, the green eyelash and the fairy dust palys. Is this bad for the corals, and if so, how do we get rid of or reduce it? We just had our water parameters checked, no phosphates or nitrates, everything looked good. It's a 29g biocube.

Is Round Rock considered North Austin or Elsewhere? North of the river really isn't anywhere close to Round Rock......

Timfish - I have all the equipment and supplies to do this, I could very easily make this solution.

Expiration dating can be debatable - 4 months out should be fine!

I don't think it would be necessary to have the water samples all have the same salinity. I do, however think it is absolutely necessary to have a control solution with known concentrations to use to compare the test kits. I think you either have to make control solutions, or just pick one water sample to be a control and establish it's concentration before you start the test comparisons.

Here's my opinion: I think this is interesting and very "doable". We just need to get it together and decide the best way to proceed. I think we should do the following: Everyone that's interested - figure out what kind of information you want to get out of the testing - what parameters you want to check, etc. Get a list together of everything we want tested. Get another list together of all the test kits we have available to use. Once we know that, we can figure out what kind of control or multiple controls to use (pre made salt water, calibration fluids etc...), and get them ready. Then we just have to get together and run all the tests. They definitely all need to be done at the same time, under the same lighting conditions, and with a few people that can agree on any questionable results. Putting the data together would be easy, once we have it, we can report it any way we want just using excel.

I have a micro scale at work, it would be easy to make a control after hours, I just don't have all the raw materials. I have access to some of the components, for example we have some calcium that is past our expiration requirements and is going to be disposed of that I could use, but not all of the components! If we could gather up the raw materials though, I could measure them out and make solutions.

It's very possible to make a control, if you have the raw materials. I wasn't thinking of trying to find the best salt, but just thinking in terms of having a control water sample - which the Dallas study didn't have. It's harder to tell if the test kits are truly accurate if you don't have a control solution of known concentrations to test them with. And actually, if you have a good control water sample, you don't need a whole bunch of water samples from different aquariums to find out which test kit is best (since everyone's water is going to be slightly different), you just need a good supply of your control water, and all the test kits that you want to check. You run all of your tests on the same water, and then graph the results from each of the different test kits. That would give you a better idea of which kit is the best. That's why I was thinking of using salt manufactured for saltwater tanks, they list the mineral concentrations on their packaging, and you wouldn't have to mix up your own components (I don't have calcium and magnesium and iron, or a balance to weigh them out, sitting around). Only problem is you have to trust the manufacturer to list accurate amounts on their packaging, and I don't think they're all that accurate. If you made a control and based on the info on the packaging it said there was 500mg of calcium in a gallon of water, and your test kits say that there is 600mg in a gallon of water, you wouldn't be able to tell if the kits were that inaccurate, or if the info on the packaging was inaccurate. Another option I just thought of, we could make multiple control samples, one for each component you wanted to test, like pH, or calcium. You could measure out some calcium carbonate and dissolve it in enough water to make the concentration you want, and then use the test kits to check the concentration and compare the results. That way you know the exact concentration and what your result is supposed to be, and can see what kits get the closest result. Not sure how you would make a control for something like nitrates though, would have to think about that one.

Well now aren't you the funny one! Wasn't this post supposed to be discussing water test kits??

All right.....when the chubacca (however you spell that) jokes start rolling, I'm out! Back to work....

I already have a room. I'm in it. By myself. Working and bored.