Brackish/F8 Question(s)?

[RTR]

Even with a high KH, I would definitely opt for aragonite sand. I have not run an f-8 tank without aragonite in decades and wold never do so, or suggest that anyone not use it. Cheap insurance. Low salinity while maintaining high KH is not easy for most folks - my water is significantly softer than yours (mine is only moderately hard), but my experience makes me suspect that stable KH is as important to longevity as is the salinity if not more so, but I don;t have enough data to prove it.

I also like the fake mangrove ornaments - mangroves are natural to the areas where these fish grow up.

[Kyle D]

Thanks for all the help. We picked up the Carib Sea Aragamax sugar sized sand and I can't wait to use it!

[Flutter]

Oh my gosh.

Just got back from the local pet store and they regularly order in F8s. There's an order of large ones coming in tomorrow. We told him we wanted a small one and he said he'd ask for some small ones bagged separately on the next order (from when we let him know that we're ready). We thought that was positively awesome of him. Even better because the current one he has has a nematode

Not only that, but written right on their tank is say that they're brackish fish and provides a short list of what they eat (i.e. not pellets and flakes and such).

[Kyle D]

I too am really excited about the prospects after speaking to the owner of the lfs. Although, I believe Flutter and I are planning on dropping back in tonight to check out the lfs' latest shipment.

I have also been emailing a local reef/marine place in order to get rock and their white Bahamas Sand aragonite sand substrate. According to this reef/marine store we only need about half the amount of sand that we bought in order to do a 1" depth in our tank. Their price for the sand will be about $7 less than the place we bought our sand from for the same amount. So, the Aragamax is going to go back to the store.

Also, what I'm really excited over is that they have offered to help us pick rocks from their inventory in order to create an awesome aqua-scape for our future F8. This is great because I really don't know where to begin and am at a complete loss, but very excited!

I'm so excited!



I bet you couldn't tell that!

We're also considering a refractometer, would this one be ok?

[Pufferpunk]

Most any refractometer is OK, but you need to calibrate it with Pinpoint calibration solution.

[Kyle D]

Most any refractometer is OK, but you need to calibrate it with Pinpoint calibration solution.

Could you use RO to calibrate it?

Also, we picked up 15 lbs of Bahamas sand last night and 18.5 lbs of Reefer rock to go in the tank. The owner was generous enough to open up after business hours for us and even helped us pick the rocks and laid out the aqua-scape too. It looked awesome and it took him probably like 10-15 minutes to come up with it and show us how it could go together in a couple of different ways! Then we had to disassemble it to bring it home! lol So, I'm hoping the pictures I snapped of it assembled will help us reassemble it.

[~reefchik~]

My refractometer calibrates with distilled water.

[Pufferpunk]

Please read: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-12/rhf/index.php

[~reefchik~]

Not at you, PP..but I've read that article in the past. I'm sure somebody somewhere needs that much info to keep their refractometers working well, but for me....way TMI. I do appreciate RHFs analicity however from a scientific geekish standpoint.

[Pufferpunk]

Yeah, it's a lot to take in. But basically it says there is a curve when measuring salty water with a refractometer calibrated to FW.

[RTR]

I second PP's comments. But It really is highly dependent of what your target density is to be. If you are keeping only F-8s, and those at 3-5ppm, max, the error is not great. If you at or beyond the midpoint of the FW->BW->SW gradient, you really should be using the most accurate calibration available to you. There is little point in using quality equipment if it is not calibrated properly. A poor reading is little better than a guess.

[~reefchik~]

Far be it from me to second guess Mr Holmes-Farley, but seriously.....he spends all that time proving categorically how important or significant a tiny difference in refractometer calibration could be, and on the other he states

"Fortunately for aquarists, most marine organisms are fairly forgiving of the exact salinity, and high quality reef aquaria can seemingly have a fairly wide range of salinity. " and "Recommendations aside, high quality reef aquaria exist with a fairly wide range of salinity. Many highly successful reef aquaria have salinity in the range of 32-36 ppt, or specific gravity in the range of 1.024 to 1.027. "

Also, he subjectively uses terms like "inexpensive refractometers". So, how do I know if I have a good one or a poor one?

And more to the point of this particular thread, since we are discussing brackish water (ie hyposaline) he said

"If you are using a refractometer for hyposalinity, such as when treating a sick fish, I'd just use one calibrated in freshwater, because that is closer in salinity than seawater to the hyposaline solution usually used (say, specific gravity = 1.009). A new standard for hyposalinity can also be made by mixing one part 35 ppt seawater and two parts freshwater, but that is probably overkill."

Anyway, that said, I have a lot of respect for the author, and for you experts here. And I think it's good to have accurate equipment and know how to use it. It's just that sometimes we can turn the entire experience into something more along the lines of an episode of "The Big Bang Theory", and sometimes I wonder if they modeled the "Sheldon" character off someone very much like Randy Holmes-Farley

[Flutter]

It's just that sometimes we can turn the entire experience into something more along the lines of an episode of "The Big Bang Theory", and sometimes I wonder if they modeled the "Sheldon" character off someone very much like Randy Holmes-Farley

This is good stuff to learn about as I've never calibrated one before. The one in the lab must have always been calibrated by someone else as I know that one had to be very very accurate.

[Pufferpunk]

I wonder if you could "calibrate" a hydrometer off a calibrated refractometer. Like, if your hydrometer is .002 off, you can just add/subtract that off what you read? Or maybe they don't work like that?

[Kyle D]

I wonder if you could "calibrate" a hydrometer off a calibrated refractometer. Like, if your hydrometer is .002 off, you can just add/subtract that off what you read? Or maybe they don't work like that?

I've heard of other people doing that so I don't see why you couldn't. However, I think it would be very important to keep the hydrometer very very clean or just check it once a month or so.