how often do you use a turkey baster ?
- Thread starter jerl77
- Start date
My turkey baster is the main tool I use, I use it to feed, stream water to the rocks, extract unwanted items in tank, retrieve frags that fell behind rockwork, etc. That thing is like my arm in the tank.
As far as blowing off the rocks, prolly once a week.
As far as blowing off the rocks, prolly once a week.
Never.
- Location
- Bergen County, NJ
Never. I use a small baster, to mix my frozen food to make sure it is not clumped.
Clean the rocks??? That is what hermits and snails are for!
Clean the rocks??? That is what hermits and snails are for!
I voted once a week, but there is a caveat. For a number of irrelevant reasons (at least to this thread) I haven't (yet) used it since I set up my new tank.
On my old tank I used it multiple times a week, but not everyday. You will be surprised by the amount of crap that comes off of your rock, and this was in a tank with a severely over sized skimmer (DAS Ex2 on a 65g) and flow approaching 50x tank volume turnover. It gets all of that stuff into the water column where it can be removed by your skimmer, and used by filter feeders
Once I started blasting the rock work with a turkey baster, I saw increased water quality measured in lower nitrates, decreased nuisance algae (not that I had that much to begin with), and increased sponge and fanworm growth. I would hazard to guess that I had lower phosphates as well, but I didn't yet have the Hanna Meter when I first started with the turkey baster so I had no way to measure phosphates before and after.
If you have never blasted your rocks, go buy yourself a $3 turkey baster (I bet it will cost you less than that) and give it a try. If you already have a turkey baster for spot feeding, you have nothing to lose.
On my old tank I used it multiple times a week, but not everyday. You will be surprised by the amount of crap that comes off of your rock, and this was in a tank with a severely over sized skimmer (DAS Ex2 on a 65g) and flow approaching 50x tank volume turnover. It gets all of that stuff into the water column where it can be removed by your skimmer, and used by filter feeders
Once I started blasting the rock work with a turkey baster, I saw increased water quality measured in lower nitrates, decreased nuisance algae (not that I had that much to begin with), and increased sponge and fanworm growth. I would hazard to guess that I had lower phosphates as well, but I didn't yet have the Hanna Meter when I first started with the turkey baster so I had no way to measure phosphates before and after.
If you have never blasted your rocks, go buy yourself a $3 turkey baster (I bet it will cost you less than that) and give it a try. If you already have a turkey baster for spot feeding, you have nothing to lose.
Don't get me started on hermit crabs, but hermits and snails are not doing as nearly a good job, nor as a complete of a job as you think they are. Do you ever have to clean the glass on the front of your tank...?
- Location
- Bergen County, NJ
Yes i clean the glass on my tank. I personally dont have any probs with my levels, so to go an kill myself to BASTE my rocks, naaaa. There is no turkey baster in the ocean. As long as you have good current you should be fine..
And even if i was going to do anythin to clean the rocks i would use a small powerhead with a long hose on it, that i can attach to a stick and usethat to blow off the rocks, so i dont have to stick my entire arm into my 175...
Psycho graphic
Trouble Maker!
- Location
- Somewhere on the East Coast
- Location
- Bergen County, NJ
See same idea. I am just too lazy to actualy keep squeezing the bulb.. So the PH will work wonders!
- Location
- Holmdel NJ 07733
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, you mean in a fish tank-context. Sorry, my bad - I need to change my vote. :biggrinpa
Psycho graphic
Trouble Maker!
- Location
- Somewhere on the East Coast
You ARE lazy! :biglaugh:
Why do you need to clean the glass on your tank... don't your snails take care of that?
I fail to see how blowing off your rocks once a week or so is going to kill you, let alone be an inconvenience of any sort when viewed within the larger picture.
You are right there are no turkey basters in the ocean (aside from garbage). There are also no power heads, skimmers, filter socks, MH lights, PCs, T55s, reflectors, auto top offs, lighting timers, test kits, glass walls, overflow boxes, chillers, quarantine tanks, refugiums, controllers, calcium reactors, phosphate reactors, sumps, heaters or carbon reactors either. Which by your logic should not be needed either.
I headed off the argument that all you need is good current. I had close to 50x turnover in my tank that was well dispersed throughout the tank and rock work. Yet I still managed to blow tons of crap off my rocks.
I have at times used a power head to blow off my rocks, it is the same concept as using a turkey baster. It is only scale that has changed.
So how often do you use the power head? And does anything come off your rocks?
For me, snails do a terrible job cleaning glass. The trails they leave behind just show me how ineffective they are at it. I prefer to use a MagFloat and clean the entire pane in a few swipes.
i use a baster to blow off the rocks about once a month. When i had sand i blew them off once a week.
no matter how much current you have you will still be able to blast crap out of the crevices in your rock.
It takes only a couple minutes, why let all the crap build up inside the rocks and make it harder on yourself?
no matter how much current you have you will still be able to blast crap out of the crevices in your rock.
It takes only a couple minutes, why let all the crap build up inside the rocks and make it harder on yourself?
That was exactly my point. See what happens when I forget to use the appropriate smiley.
- Location
- Bergen County, NJ
- Location
- Bergen County, NJ
I agree. Snails will work somewhat. But not enough. For my 175, you know how many snails i would need to actually have them control the glass..
- Location
- Bergen County, NJ
And the 3 people who say that they baste their rocks every day.. You def have too much time on your hands..... We should also mention what size tank that we have. Ya a 12 gal nano, takes 3 squirts of baster. in my 175 will take much much longer than that!
Part of it is being a little lazy. And other is the time consumption that the tank already takes from me. I take care of my tank. But I dont have OCD.....
Part of it is being a little lazy. And other is the time consumption that the tank already takes from me. I take care of my tank. But I dont have OCD.....
Sponsor Reefs
We're a FREE website, and we exist because of hobbyists like YOU who help us run this community.
Click here to sponsor $10:
