Water Testing Question & Cleaning question

[Zamzam]

I am kind of new to the saltwater side of the hobby and have a general question regarding water testing. I have a 40 gallon breeder with a 29 gallon sump and a fish only system. Can I get away with using the Tetra test strips or should I be looking into something a bit more advanced? If not does anyone have any recommendations?

Also, I recently had to bleach some aquarium rocks and that process is already done. But I did it in one of the buckets I usually use when drip acclimating new fish (didnt think ahead unfortunately). After pouring out the bleach water I filled it again with fresh water and let it sit for a about a day and then poured that out. Then rinsed it several times and let it air dry. Do you think it would be safe to use that bucket again if I ever need to put fish in there?

 

[andrewey]

As far as the bucket goes, it's good to use again

As far as testing is concerned, I wouldn't necessarily suggest the tetra test strips. First, what are you trying to test for? Once your fish only with live rock (FOWLR) system is set up, you can either A) get away with no testing and routine water changes (letting nuisance algaes dictate if there are problems with too much nutrients/lighting or B) test for nitrate. The rest of those tetra strips concern themselves with pH (don't really need to test), ammonia (not important unless there is a change to the tank or a death), nitrite (not important), alkalinity (not important for you), chlorine (if you have chlorine in your saltwater, you have much larger problems).

Therefore, I would recommend either not testing, or getting an inexpensive nitrate test such as salifert. I would also have an ammonia test of some sort on hand.

 

[Snoopy 67]

Just to be safe I would use some chlorine remover.
API has testing kits that should do you fine. Don't know anything on Tetra.
Fish only generally has high nitrates.

 

[Zamzam]

Thanks for the quick replies. I guess I would only really be testing for nitrates. I was just concerned because all the videos I watch have people with these elaborate test kits and are testing for things I am not even sure about to be honest.

 

[Plunder]

I bought the API master reef and saltwater kits. They are decent but can be inaccurate if I could do it again I would have ordered the Redsea pro kit.

 

[andrewey]

No worries! I think it's important to distinguish between a fish only tank, which is really like a freshwater tank, but now you get to keep all sorts of new and cool fish and a reef tank, which caters to keeping coral alive. Corals are pretty particular about their water, so you end up testing more frequently. Fish are pretty forgiving (up to a point), so there's not too much to test for. Hope that helps!