- Today on the 5-Minute Saltwater Aquarium Guide
just when you thought that you had this reefing thing down
the water starts to yellow and needs to be polished.
Today, we show you how to maintain crystal clear water
in these two reef tanks.
(upbeat music)
Hey, everyone, your host of BRStv
and the 5-Minute Salt Water Aquarium Guide
this is a clear, simplified direct path
to setting up a first, successful reef tank.
It's time to talk carbon and a couple other things
to keep the water pristine.
These are two minute tasks and super cheap.
But you have to know what to look for
both in terms of when to do it
and what success looks like.
Today, we're gonna hand over those tools
and the knowledge of what to do.
The challenge here is while the skimmer
and water changes keep overall water pollutants down,
neither will prevent the water from yellowing over time.
Yellow water's just the end result of organics, food,
and fish waste breaking down.
The yellow water's not just visually undesirable,
but also blocks light from penetrating the water
and reduces the energy to the corals.
Overall, yellow water's just representative
of general poor water quality
and often is associated with undesirable odors.
Because the lights in our tanks are so blue
it's often hard to see with a human eye
how yellow the water's really become.
You can see it best when the tank lights are off,
and you look through the tank,
particularly through the sides of the tank
where you're looking through more of the water
and you can see how yellow the room looks on the other side.
How the best time to see
is actually when you do your water changes,
put your new bucket of freshly made saltwater
next to the water you take out of the tank,
they don't look the same, it's time to polish the water.
Running some carbon will turn the water
back to its original pristine, blue state.
In fact, next time you run some carbon
the day before your water change
and you'll see how visually the old water
and the new water look nearly identical this time.
The media we've been talking about is activated carbon.
Carbon's the most widely used water filtration media
on the planet and used in all kinds of industries.
You've probably seen carbon in your drinking water filters,
in RODI systems, there's that second,
sometimes third filter.
Under that paper is a solid carbon block or cylinder.
The carbon media is just a vast microscopic pore network
designed to absorb pollutants.
And the media has so much surface area
it's somewhat difficult to grasp.
In fact, a single teaspoon of carbon
has as much surface area as an entire football field.
That's partially what makes it so good
at removing these common water pollutants.
In an aquarium, most reefers simply drop in a filtered bag
of carbon into a high flow area or the sump or tank.
Or better yet, run it in your reactor,
which pumps water through the media.
The most common being a BRS reactor
just because they're affordable
and the small canister cartridge combo is easy to clean
and maintenance.
However, in these two tanks
I'm just gonna do it a bit different.
On the 40 breeder I'm gonna use
a $30 Eheim Liberty Hang On the Back Power Filter
just because it's significantly cheaper
than a reactor and pump.
Second, because the hang on design is a lot easier
to install, and lastly, it's just a cleaner install.
Eheim Liberty filter just sits on the back, plug it in
and prime it, inside are pleated filters
with activated carbon,
those little cartridges will not only polish the water
but also reduce floating particulates in the water as well.
Once they wear out just replace the cartridge.
However, much cheaper and probably a better way's
to put a small bag of carbon back there,
a 4X8 mesh bag with drawstring will work well.
And the best carbon we sell for this
is the ROX 0.8 for around 20 bucks.
ROX 0.8 is designed for the pharmaceutical industry
for purity, it has the widest array of pore sides
for effectiveness and efficiency with common contaminants.
ROX is also one of the hardest or lowest dust carbons
out there so it's easy to rinse and use.
A quarter cup of carbon's probably adequate
and the small container
will probably last you most the year on these tanks.
So like a buck and a half a month.
The simple bag of carbon is actually what we're gonna do
on the E-170 as well.
However, in this case, the back some compartment
has a media tray, which will hold our carbon bag.
Pop it in and slide it down, the baffle system in the back
will ensure water flows through it,
a nice, clean, inexpensive way to do this.
With both the Liberty filter and the E-170,
before you use the carbon, make sure to run it
under some cold water in the bag
until the water runs clear and all the dusty fines are out.
If you're looking for best practice
you can rinse in RODI water, but personally,
I always done it in tap water
just because it's faster and easier.
As a rule of thumb, I change it out every couple
to few weeks, but more precisely,
when you see the water turning yellow in the tank,
try out that bucket test when you do your water changes
and you'll not only get the hang of it
but be acting on data and doing better than most of us.
So yellow water's handled
but there are other pollutants you can't see,
most notably phosphate and nitrate.
If you've implemented a reliable, stable solution
for nitrate and phosphate in the first year of reefing
I think you can count yourself in the top 10%
of first year reefers, avoiding a major challenge,
which often results in undesirable algae growth.
My favorite solution for this is called a refugium.
The entire 5-Minute Guide's always available here,
but if you wanna know what a refugium is,
why it's my favorite solution,
and how to implement one on these tanks
that's all coming up right here.