theyre that much? wow, I guess i take mine for granted (it came with my RO/DI system).
Yes look into it lol. the people who do not have issues with using tap water are often the ones why have very clean tap water, or perhaps very soft tap water. think - if the tap water is hard, it already has minerals in it and the salt mix is designed to be added to pure water, so that adds a perfect share of minerals to the water too. combine, i think you will just have too much stuff going on in your water...its just a thought though. if the tap water is soft, this means theres not that much minerals dissolved in it (GH, KH) and also this usually means its acidic, but the salt mix buffers acidic tap water anyway at the designated 8-8.4 pH, most often 8.3 pH
Congrads! always fun to try and find everyone in tanks like these lol.
hmmm idk what to say about your pH other than it should be higher. have you tested your water change water? what doe sit test out to be? if its not 8pH or more, maybe its your tap water reacting somehow with the salt mix =/ I know that it will be around 8.3pH if you use distilled or RO water.
Personally i usually have no time to drip acclimate, although that is the preferred method, and I'd do it if i had more time on my hands. I temp acclimate, I emmidiately put a little seachem prime conditioner in the coral bag before i start to acclimate/when i open the bag. then i temp acclimate and start adding tank water to the bag a little at a time, keeping water oxygenated and eventually the salinity will match (i usually jsut take about an hour to do this) and I take a turkey baster, I rinse the coral frag well with tank water (into the coral bag) and then i put the coral into the tank. I used to do preventative dips of peroxide and iodine too. I recommend at least one of those, but dont apply the hydroxide directly on the coral, more so on the frag rock or plug its on. with iodine you just add 2-3 drops of it to the coral bag during acclimation. but not all things can be iodined, i know ricordea hate it.
If I get the coral on the nipple plug lmao, I usually just place the plug on my rock or bury it in the sand if the coral can live on sand, and forget about it. usually depending on the coral, it will eventually cover the plug and you wont be able to see it. I have tried to superglue things to rock before but that means I have to take out the rock to do it and thats annoying lol. I would rather risk my tank looking like frag plug hell (which is what my 10 gal looks like right now) than disturbing my rocks. he way to do it is up to you. scraping them off the plug and gluing them often allows for a more natural look right from the start.
I bought my distilled water for $1+ per gallon, before i finally got fed up with it and got my RODI unit. I am not one of those people who has access to cheap RO/DI water, but constantly i hear of people doing it so somewhere in the US it is possible lmao. i have no knowledge of how canada is like, so i am sorry if i am suggesting useless info here.
I am sure you can figure something out.
