ASW or NSW (paul b)

[hurtback]

Paul B---

when you do water changes or top off do you use ro water or real salt water?
if you use ro water, then is'nt your tank now ASW?
and---
the animals that are in your tank---caught from the water or store bought?

when you had NSW in the tank did you get store bought animals and put them in the tank?
how often do you change the water with NSW?
I have, again, setup a 55 NSW---i have dead (live) rock in the tank and i'm having a cyano ( that red carpet algae) issue---i'm thinking its cause the filtered water i'm using to top off--probably the filters need to be changed---once i have this problem resolved, i'm thinking of getting some store bought animals,corals/fish---
what you have in the tank that you've shown--mostly store bought?


right now i have about 20 killies--different sizes, 1 small blue claw, which has already shedded its shell once, a few sticklebacks, 4 glass shrimp --nothing really exciting right now---but working on it
thanks
steve

 

[Paul B]

Hurtback, I will try to answer your questions.
My reef was originally started with all NSW. That was about 40 years ago and I am sure none of that water is still in there. Now for top offs I use RO/DI water and for the most part for water changes I use ASW. I only collect NSW in the summer and I do that maybe three or four times a year. I only collect 10 or 15 gallons at a time, when I do that I change water with that NSW. So I would guess my tank is about 10 or 15% NSW. I would like to use 100% NSW but it is heavy and not real easy to collect in those quantities.

Most of the tropical animals are store bought. I live in New York and can't collect hippo tangs, fire clowns or corals. I do however collect hermit crabs, shrimp, macro algae, barnacles, worms, amphipods, copepods and bacteria. THis is all put in my tank. The bacteria is the most important thing. I collect that numerous times and add it to the tank in the form of mud which I suspend in a net or place in a container in the tank.
I feel the bacteria needs replacing to keep up the diversity. If all of your water is ASW and all of your animals came from a LFS they your tank is a desert as far as bacterial diversity goes. Eventually one type of bacteria will predominate and that bacteria may not be the best at converting ammonia and nitrates.
Why do so many people have to change so much water to reduce nitrates when their DSB is supposed to do that?
Why does my nitrate not go up in a tank with a reverse undergravel filter which presumably does not have the ability to convert nitrate as efficiently?
I believe it is the bacteria that I collect that is helping me with that.

I also have a local tank with some of the same animals you mentioned. I also have in there pipefish, butterflies, and a burrfish. I change this water back and forth with my reef as that small tank is not really filtered and there is no live rock in there, the nitrates in there rise drastically.
I sometimes collect water here in the Atlantic

 

[Paul B]

Here is one of my collected fish

 

[Phyl]

Isn't he a cutie! ;D

 

[Paul B]

Isn't he a cutie!

Oh, the fish. I thought you meant me! ;D