my 625 gallon DIY plywood aquarium build

[JonY3k]

The tank that had the problem with ick was not on a timer but I was turning the light on and off manually.

Spiff44 the plywood will be supported but I have not bolted the supports on yet. I have installed the supports for the front of the tank along the right and left sides of the glass. I need to finish making them and painting them. Pictureswill come with more progress.
The most recent progress I have made. I just sealed the seam between the pond liner and the glass with 3M 5200 Marine Adhesive Sealant. I tried it out on a little bit of scrap liner yesterday and it looks like it was trying to stick to the liner. This stuff takes 5-7 days to cure so it looks like I will be able to put some water in it on Wednesday I need to see if turning the heat up in the house will help it cure faster.

 

[spiff44]

Ah, sorry dude.. and I hate to be backseat observer...;-)

 

[Desdinova]

Salt wont get it alone, heat is key. Slowly get the temp up around 90-92 if possible. Watch the fish for signs of stress. Run like that for at least 10 days and no more ich. Salt+heat+regular water changes works great! Are your lights on a timer? You probably already know, but running lights 24 hours a day stresses the fish and promotes ich.

TY for the correction. I forgot to mention the need for heat.

 

[JonY3k]

Ok I have my new Salt level checker (TDS) now I can not find how much salt to uses rated in PPM. the water that comes out of the tap at my house is almost 300 ppm. I will be filling the tank soon so am changing the water in my other tanks so I have some good water to put in the new tank. I will be bring up the salt level up to 1000 ppm in the tanks.

 

[Desdinova]

TDS stands for Total Dissolved Solids. I don't think it's specifically for salt.

Anyway, I did a searched for "salt ppm ick" and came up with this link.

 

[JonY3k]

That is true but for some reason no one is selling Pond salt level test kits any more. the kits used to be easy to get. you just took a sample and put in 4 drops of the one chemical and started adding drops of the second chemical and when it turned purple the number of drops let you know how much salt was in the water.

 

[deluther]

All a tds meter measures ARE salts, Des. In reality, it can't even do that. It just measures electrical conductivity of the water and does a conversion calculation to get a ppm reading. There are two different ppm conversions out there, so make sure you know what conversion your meter uses or you will end up with a higher EC than you want and the fish will suffer.

No, it won't tell him actual table/aquarium salt content since it reads conductivity which is affected by ALL dissolved salts in the water, but like he said, he knows the tap water is 300 so all he has to do is add salt until it reads 1300 ppm to get 1000 ppm of salt. Just remember, 1000 ppm on two meters with different conversion factors will be vastly a different salt content even though both meters read the same. It's best to get an EC meter instead, but ppm meters are fine as long as you understand how the conversion factors affect ppm reading.

 

[Desdinova]

TDS meters measure more than just salt, Dul. Take a look.

Although I do wonder if a tank could be filtered to the point where the only dissolved solids (that count) remaining would be the saline content... I'm big on Sea Chem products and their Hypersorb product absorbs heavy metals, among other things. Put some Purigen in front of that, to get the organics out of the way, and you might be able to disregard all the other stuff.

 

[deluther]

No, as stated in the article you linked to:

TDS meters are, in reality, conductivity meters. They work by applying a voltage between two or more electrodes. Positively charged ions (e.g., sodium, Na

[SIZE=-1][SUP]+[/SUP][/SIZE]; calcium, Ca[SIZE=-1][SUP]++[/SUP][/SIZE]; magnesium, Mg[SIZE=-1][SUP]++[/SUP][/SIZE]; hydrogen ion, H[SIZE=-1][SUP]+[/SUP][/SIZE]; etc.) will move toward the negatively charged electrode, and negatively charged ions (e.g., chloride, Cl[SIZE=-1][SUP]-[/SUP][/SIZE]; sulfate, SO[SIZE=-1]4[/SIZE][SIZE=-1][SUP]--[/SUP][/SIZE]; bicarbonate, HCO[SIZE=-1]3[/SIZE][SIZE=-1][SUP]-[/SUP][/SIZE]; etc.) will move toward the positively charged electrode (Figure 1). Because these ions are charged and moving, they constitute an electrical current. The meter then monitors how much current is passing between the electrodes as a gauge of how many ions are in solution.

So, they don't directly measure salts or anything else for that matter, just conductivity. When you add a salt to water it hydrolyzes and releases ions into the water that affect the conductivity.

Also from your link:

As conductivity meters in disguise, TDS meters will only detect mobile charged ions. They will not detect any neutral (uncharged) compounds. Such compounds include sugar, alcohol, many organics (including many pesticides and their residues), and unionized forms of silica, ammonia, and carbon dioxide. These meters also do not detect macroscopic particulates, as those are too large to move in the electric fields applied. So if you see "rusty" looking water from iron oxide particulates, that won't be measured. Neither will anything else that makes the water look cloudy. Bacteria and viruses also won't be detected.

Any type of filtration that would remove ions that affect conductivity would also remove the aquarium salt ions.

I cant believe we are discussing tds meters when talking about aquarium salt. Way overkill. Just follow the instructions on the box of salt and use common sense. If you change some water, just add enough salt for the water added back. Don't forget to compensate for evaporation if any. I usually just add salt the first time and don't add any during weekly water changes. You only need salt for about 10 days. The most important thing to do is to do something soon. Ich can kill if left untreated. Good luck, jon!

 

[wednesday13]

Any progress with the rest of the supports and sealing up the window and did you find a good paint for the steel? Looked like u were pretty close last set of pics.

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