Weekly Discussion - Additives; use 'em or lose 'em?

[Anonymous]

Hey Everyone,

We are going to try bringing back the weekly debate, but we are now calling it the 'Weekly Discussion'. Every week we will post a discussion topic that will be 'stickied' for a week. Once the week is over the discussion will become 'unstickied' and a new discussion will be posted.
This discussion is meant to get at your experience and to share information that is in your head, so don't necessarily treat it as information gathering. State your opinion and, if available, use material, anecdotal or otherwise, that will back up your opinion.
If you have topics that you think would be helpful for the RDO community to discuss, please send me a pm.

Weekly Discussion - Additives; use 'em or lose 'em.

There are a plethora of additives for reef tanks on the market, but does adding them to your tank actually do anything besides part you from your money and time?

 

[liquid]

Myself, I only use kalkwasser and maybe the occasional alkalinity bump with buffer. Never found to need more.

Shane

 

[danmhippo]

I think for those that are battling with everchanging parameters and could not yet find a method suitable for his tank, they are more likely to want to try sugarwater and sandwater out there.

It takes some efforts in my part to resist temptations of many flashy and falsily advertised labels on the bottles. I finally quit going to stores to look at those additives and add nothing to my tank for a month. It's not until then I find the tank's overall health actually improved greatly.

Simplicity is the best.

 

[Anonymous]

I've found that for those people who don't know anything about their tanks, and provide barely minimal maintenance, then some of the additives make sense. People who know what they are doing generally don't need them.

 

[King Jason]

Myself, I only use kalkwasser and maybe the occasional alkalinity bump with buffer. Never found to need more.

Shane

Same here. Although my tank is new and lightly stocked I have seen good results.

 

[MarkO1]

For 18 months, I haven't added anything except for B-Ionic and IO salt (15% W/C per month). But last Friday, I decided to add one small capfull of Seachem's "Reef Trace" and "Reef Plus" at approximately 1/10 the recommended weekly dosage (since I hadn't been on top of my bi-monthly water changes) and my heddoni spawned! (See post) Maybe it was coincidence, maybe not. At such a small dosage, I figured it couldn't really hurt.

 

[danmhippo]

Hmmm, have you ever heard that inverts spawn when they are "stressed"? I know clams will spawn when they are subject to different water temp and salinity........... :wink:

 

[ChrisRD]

Up until the last couple of months I was just using kalkwasser. Lately my kalk reactor can't seem to keep up with the alk demands of the tank so I've been tweaking with a bit of buffer here and there.

I'm going to be putting a Ca reactor into use this week (in addition to the kalk reactor) so I'm hoping I won't have to mess with buffer after that.

In general, I don't add anything I can't test for. I've seen too many stunning tanks now, where people are just supplementing ca/alk to think I need anything else.

 

[Mac1]

I'm generally the gadget guy, and big on science.. But have to admit. I've had more success dosing Kalk and changing water, than measuring every little variable, and dosing things to correct it all.

- Mac

 

[ReefMon]

The only things added to my tanks are light, water, food and calcium.

When someone can prove to me what in these additives and why it's needed, I'll consider adding them.

 

[jamesw]

I find that my tank does better when I dose strontium. I don't really measure it - I just use a geiger counter and keep adding until my tank "sounds right."



OK, I was joking above. I did find that adding Iron helped a lot when I had a macroalgae refugium.

Cheers
James

 

[Minh Nguyen]

I find that my tank does better when I dose strontium. I don't really measure it - I just use a geiger counter and keep adding until my tank "sounds right."



OK, I was joking above. I did find that adding Iron helped a lot when I had a macroalgae refugium.

Cheers
James

I added Iron also. Whenever my macroalgae in the refugium is running out of steam, I added some Iron. It really help the macroalgae to grow. I don't add anything else excep multivitamine, selco with food (theses are organic molecules that will breakdown) and whatever my Ca reactor added into the tank (using crushed corals)
Minh Nguyen

 

[Anonymous]

Minh, why the selco?

Anyone have any more ideas about MarkO's trace element addition and spawing of corals?

 

[Minh Nguyen]

Selco is a fatty acid formular developes for comercial food fish breeder. It have a lot of highly unsaturated fatty acid (this type of fatty acid is a lot higher in marine fish than fresh water fish). This help survival percentage of the larve and increase production from the brood stock. I did a search on this a while back. I also added vitamine to my fish food because that is what the vet at Texas State Aquarium added to their fish food also.
Minh Nguyen

 

[Anonymous]

I add Selcon or garlic to the food, and kalk or 2-part calcium/buffer additive. No strontium or iodine etc. I do have a refugium with macros, so far they are doing fine without adding iron. They are growing in "miracle mud" which may help with some additional iron, but I don't think we want to revive the mud debate here. :wink:

 

[Jamesurq]

I too have been doing nothing but water changes monthly and dripping kalk. I used to check my levels every other day but now I'm on a weekly check (if that). If I forget or putoff my waterchange I put in a tablespoon of the strontium/montybelum <- however you spell that.

Of course I do actually use lugols once a week.

 

[brandon4291]

For a host of reasons, this is what I use in my nano reefs. Ive tried to keep it simple because dosing unnecessarily in a nano will yield quick negative results. Each of my tanks gets the same product, but in varying amounts based on system parameters.

1. C-Balance for Calcium and Alk support

2. Dt's-- helps fanworms and other filter feeders (squirts/sponges)flourish when a nano dsb doesn't provide enough nutrients due to the restricted size. Any way you can increase planktonic biodiversity in your reef will increase the quality of your LR and support greater coral load in the end.

3. HBJ Frog pellets--this is food I use for my pods, crabs, shrimp and every coral that feeds from euphyllia to corallimorphs. From this I feel I am getting good micronutrient support (Fe, Ia) considering the systems are so small.

4. Seachem Iodide. Every once in a while Ill add a drop to the system to give it a boost, I feel this has a measurable effect on my system when not overdone.

explanations available upon request!



B

 

[Anonymous]

Brandon,

Tell us more about the Iodine addition. What effects do you see? Do you do anything else to the tank when you add the iodine?

 

[brandon4291]

Three major differences I see are:

1. the effects of the general coloring in the aquascape--red hues appear darker as coralline patches become deeper red/pinkish (it seems) and various red growths (alga?) appear in small patches on the LR. To me, it seems to affect biodiversity and coloring on the LR surface. If one overdoses, red cyano(?) will quickly overtake the rocks, this seems to be a clear correlation. Question (?) marks mean Im not sure of the specifics on these terms, but they do rise and decline in accordance with Ia supplementation and they can also get out of hand...

2. the rate of asexual reproduction in many corals seems to increase with regular iodide support. Clavularia send out more stolons, caulastrea fisses more often, and mushrooms seem to reproduce faster. Now in my case Im using iodide, not sure what affect this on the chemistry of the system, supposedly its less toxic. Down here we thought iodine/iodide was all the rage, and so did many of the magazines a couple years ago until the stance against became stronger.

3. For some reason my corals are always better extended with regular light iodide support. It seems to make the difference more often in soft corals.

All very anecdotal evidence indeed, but it seems so real that I do continue to use it in these small pico reefs.

I realize there is much debate on the addition of Iodine/dide to a reef system. This information is largely applied to conventional setups that have strong fish bioloads and the resulting food input. However, I feel my small water column and heavy coral stocking density quickly strips this element from the water column so it seems to me that it needs regular addition, even beyond the food pellets I feed to corals and pods.


B

 

[Anonymous]

What should we be telling new hobbiests about additives?