Beginner Series #1: What Is Your Actual Water Volume?
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Ento-Reefer
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I would love temps in the 70’s and 60’s right about now. We are in the middle of a cold snap with windchills down in the teens and 6” of snow on the ground. It sounds heavenly where you live
DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
I never thought about determining water volume this way. Thanks for the article. I have always tried my best to measure the water as I added it to a built out system, including rock and sand, however, often times I end up adding a few pieces of rock here and there and then I never remember to compensate for the amount of water that I am displacing.
OP
OP
Dave -- same here. For me, it came down to wanting to hit my water parameters more accurately. I have a type A personality. Guesswork and unknowns always bother me.
Jay Norris
Active Member
Hi, I live in South Florida, and when the temps get in the low 70's and high 60's I consider that a little cold to be boating and collecting water 15 to 20 miles offshore. When you have lived in a warm climate all your life, even the mild winters in South Florida are cold.
Ento-Reefer
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Ahh Florida. I agree with you. My dad retired to Orlando and after about 5 years of living there when he would come back north to visit he was always cold no matter the season.
JumboShrimp
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Good article? Excellent!...
“Beginner Topic”? “N” “O” spells “No.”
Just my opinion.
“Beginner Topic”? “N” “O” spells “No.”
Just my opinion.
OP
OP
Good article? Excellent!...
“Beginner Topic”? “N” “O” spells “No.”
Just my opinion.
Lets not get into a spelling contest! I will looose.
Bleigh
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My Tank Thread
LOVE math. Fun way to do it. Will show my son this when he's a bit older (he's 4 now) to show him application. Hopefully, he stays as interested in aquariums as he is now.
I just switched from fresh to salt. It is a 29 gallon biocube and it took exactly 20 gallons to fill. (4 - 5 gallon containers of salt water.) The sand bed is deeper than I would like, but the plan is to make a bigger purchase if this foray into salt water is successful. At that point I figure I can use some of the sand in the smaller tank to seed the newer tank with. Hopefully get my sand bed closer to my desired depth, while jump starting a cycle for the new one. This will also give me some more water volume back. At which point, this alkalinity dosing will come in quite handy to determine the new volume. Thanks for sharing!
I just switched from fresh to salt. It is a 29 gallon biocube and it took exactly 20 gallons to fill. (4 - 5 gallon containers of salt water.) The sand bed is deeper than I would like, but the plan is to make a bigger purchase if this foray into salt water is successful. At that point I figure I can use some of the sand in the smaller tank to seed the newer tank with. Hopefully get my sand bed closer to my desired depth, while jump starting a cycle for the new one. This will also give me some more water volume back. At which point, this alkalinity dosing will come in quite handy to determine the new volume. Thanks for sharing!
OP
OP
I have to say this has bothered me for years as well. There has always been a lot of guesswork in this hobby. Over the last few years, I've become skeptical of my own guesswork and have started treating my tank as my home lab.
wrt using old sand. That will stir up some controversy here (pardon the pun). Some folks will tell you to throw out the sand and use new sand in the next tank. Its highly debatable. Sand usually doesn't look as crisp and nice as it does when you start. In my case, I dumped the sand and kept all the live rock when migrating to my new tank. That worked quite well. I probably could have kept it.
So, I just did this using my Alk supplement and found out I was estimating my volume of tank + sump by almost 1.5 gallons. In a 20-long, that is significant.
Time to adjust dosage.
On another note, I teach high school and I told our department chair/chem teacher about this article and since we have a marine bio class where students have fish only tanks, I suggested a mystery lab where the chem kids borrow 10 ml of water (before and after adding) from a marine bio tank and calculate volume.
Time to adjust dosage.
On another note, I teach high school and I told our department chair/chem teacher about this article and since we have a marine bio class where students have fish only tanks, I suggested a mystery lab where the chem kids borrow 10 ml of water (before and after adding) from a marine bio tank and calculate volume.
OP
OP
Just keep in mind that the smaller the volume... it becomes noiser.... I guess what I mean is that you are adding less chemical to change the concentration. You have to be able to accurately measure the smaller mass. My scale at home only goes down to 5gram resolution. So it works well with a volume of 163 gallons. That said, it turns out to work fairly nicely if you can measure the mass of the chemical accurately.
Oh, absolutely. Since I am dosing such a small amount (22-23 gallons), and I am using a pump known for being precise but inaccurate (the Jebao 4-channel), I knocked 1-2 ML off my calculated dosing until I find out the perfect setting just to be safe and account for original test error.
I also used Alk instead of Ca because those tests are simpler (1 chemical) and tend to be more accurate.
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