need a vacation from a vacation
i'm back guys
i couldn't resist guys it's good to be back
vacation was good it was fun my wife and i didn't fight
today's water change wednesday new viewers what that is you
leave a question or a comment below the video i'll answer it out there and then
i try to answer it here alright so let's get right into it water change wednesday
all right rudra asks i'm going to paraphrase on this one do you have a skimmer on the 20 gallon
and maybe this is a good time to show you the reef glass skimmer that i have how i cleaned it when i
got back and i can tell you a little bit about it reef glass skimmer is awesome it's good for
20 and below and yes rudra i have it on the back left side of the 20 gallon and it works great
so i usually clean it about once a week guys this time it went two weeks so you're
looking at two weeks of skamate there and it's usually in the form of a t-level
consistency but it's really good i just use a bottle brush to clean things up
the reef glass skimmer is just a test tube guys
with a rubber cork in the top and some rigid air line and a lime wood air stone on the bottom
so you can see what it collects in the top it gets quite dirty that's about two weeks worth
the glass tube is simple to clean just shove the bottle cleaner down inside and clean it up
use a small pipe cleaner brush to clean the holes as you can see you just want to make sure you
keep everything clean we'll put this in with the skimmer i had another question uh sarah asked if
i had a skimmer on the pico and no i don't have a skimmer on that one a few people also asked about
kalkwasser in the ato and stirs are using power heads to stir up the kalkwasser on the bottom
and what i responded to them as this guys there's atos with like a needle or a stir in the bottom
that comes on every so often or you can turn it on but i believe it's on a timer and it'll stir the
calcuasser up the problem i have with that is in small nanos if you're stirring the calcuasser and
should you emit some of that ato water into your nano when it's very cloudy like that you're going
to run the risk of super saturating your tank for those of you who are just starting reef keeping
super saturating is putting too much kalkwasser in at one time and your tank will get really cloudy
sometimes it'll cloud for a moment or two but sometimes it'll cloud longer and the other issue
is it'll potentially create a spike in your ph and your dkh so that's why i always recommend let it
settle out and then use the clear water above i know there's lots of reefers who use a power head
to stir it up or this stir but those are probably most likely larger tanks where it can absorb that
much kalkwasser at one time i also wanted to thank you guys for the well wishes before i
went away on vacation that was really nice of you guys seriously thanks a lot it's good to be back
guys getting into the swing of things after question what two all right reef gaming
asked a question about how many ai prime hds he should put over his 40 gallon breeder i believe
it's pretty much standard guys you want about 18 inches of spread between lights so if you
have a 24 inch tank long then one ai prime is going to be kind of cutting it close on the
edges you'll get a shadowing effect that way so i would say after 24 inches you'll probably need two
two of any lights for that matter with 18 inches apart that's the standard distance
sometimes if you go higher with the light you can go wider but you know i'm a fan of keeping the
spread down so i wouldn't keep it so high just to keep the par level a little more
obtainable with the light a little closer so 18 inches apart reef gaming this next one guys is
kind of a touchy subject i had a viewer question about my five gallon and fish in there that
it's torture for the fish in a five gallon so this is the way i think about it this is my philosophy
i like to believe that i'm a conscientious reefer but if you think in terms of fish
being tortured that would mean the fish has this thought of being tortured like i'm being tortured
and i don't think a fish does that however it's not natural but if it's not natural
to keep a fish in five gallons it's really not natural to keep a fish in any contained
aquarium for that matter you know it's not the ocean it's not the reefs so that's the way i look
at it as long as they look healthy they eat well and they're not trying to jump out of the tank
in retrospect i think i was over doing it with three fish in the five gallon tall
you know it's tall the quantity of water is five almost six gallons but there's not much space and
my thought at first was okay well they're gonna swim up and down so i would say in a five gallon
no more than two fish in a five gallon tank but the idea of them thinking they're being tortured
or that you're torturing them i don't agree with that trying to find this one question one of the
somebody asked about clumping and i can't find it now
i guess it doesn't matter okay somebody i guess it doesn't matter somebody asked why their sand
bed was clumping and this goes back to my sand bed videos that's another that's a great question
it's another reason why i haven't been in favor of sand beds lately at least thicker ones around
two inches or more what happens is you don't have enough turnover in the sand with natural bio load
whether it be gobies or sand sifting snails there's just not enough you'd really have to
overload and even that over the years i've had two inch sand beds and sure enough after about
three to six months if i shift around or i reach around inside to move something i'll see a big
clump of sand stuck together and that's the reason for that that's why more recently
i've opted to go less of a sand that you could do a two inch sand bed without clumping
if you're going to vacuum your sand bed when you do a water change just keep it turned over
so that's what i would recommend if you're going to keep a two inch sand bed and if you're not the
clumping isn't bad in itself it's kind of like a live rock and it will have bacteria on it but
it's not really harmful for the tank all right guys i think that does it for this one good to
be back behind the camera reaching out to you guys educating so anyway have a great rest of the night
new viewers you might as well subscribe hit the bell and i'll see you sunday take care now
i felt like i had so many questions to get to tonight because i missed the week but i think
that's going to be it or the video i'll get too long you know how i feel about long videos
come on come on
i don't know so anyway
you