• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

The order of the octopus.........

In my experience your better off lettign the tank fully cycle before doing any water changes, because you will throw off your balance. Ex: If your ammonia has already spiked, then your nitrites are begaining to take over as your ammonia is being converted, if you do a water change now,you will eliminate alot of the ammonia and nirtites, casueing your bacteria in the next stages to be less able to convert large amounts of waste. IMO Let the tank fully cycle then take care of you nitrates after your cycle is complete and ammonia and nitrites are 0 ppm. And mayeb I didn't understand your part about Salt, but have salt in the water the whole time.
 
DHyslop said:
Read this thread. Yes, all of it!

Maturity issues

Dan

Hi RDK,

Listen to Dan! That's got to be about the most cogent discussion of developing and maintaining water quality that I've ever seen. Eric B. is a highly respected expert in such things with both formal training and a ton of practical experience. The other participants on the thread seem to also be very thoughtful and knowledgeable - they're asking insightful questions and adding quality information of their own.

Now, you might say "but I'm not keeping any corals" and that's a reasonable point to make. The important point to take away from this is that you are NOT really considering the keeping of a pet octopus in the sense that you might think of having a pet cat or dog. A dog or cat is pretty much self supporting in terms of temperature, air, and, if you leave the toilet lid open, they don't even need you for hydration or osmotic balance. An octopus or any other marine creature is 100% dependant on you for all of these things. Get it wrong and the best thing you can hope for is that the animal dies quickly rather than suffering.

We all need to think of our aquariums as micro ecologies with consideration to maintaining a healthy environment for the animals we choose to keep. The best way to do that, as is pointed out in the RC thread is to go slowly (very slowly) and allow nature to do the work for you. Doing so is not only more effective than trying to artificially manage your parameters it's also far less work.

The downside is that it does require a fair amount of patience and there's often a period during the early phase of cycling when your tank is going to be a bit malodorous but that should pass fairly quickly and the end result will be a balanced aquarium that requires somewhat less intensive maintenance.

Polemically yours,

Alex
 
Free registration at reef central is about the best deal there is. If you're serious about keeping a marine aquarium you should at least do this bit of legwork. I only wish someone would have handed me this link when I was setting up my first tank.

Dan
 

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