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

[brandon4291]

Oh man that's dangerous territory! Id advise to use what I use if you are building very small, coral-only reef systems that use little to no fish in the system design. My rationale is that if you don't feed everyday to support fish, but feed pellet food couple times a week to the corals and pods, you may not be providing enough micro nutrient support for the corals and amphs in the system.

This opens up the pandora's box of what to use, Reef Plus by SeaChem for example has iodine and an assortment of other additives and trace elements, is this necessary? I dunno. Ive just chosen to supplement basic iodide (SeaChem yellow) and it seems to work. Would never want to say that all systems need this regimen, its just my own personal potion!


Brandon

 

[Minh Nguyen]

What should we be telling new hobbiests about additives?

For me, I tell them not to add anything except Ca and Alkalinity.
Minh Nguyen

 

[Anonymous]

I add Kalk and B-ionic. I sometimes add vinegar to the kalk to help drive the ph down. My tank's ph always climbs to high (8.7 at peak photoperiod.) I'll add 50ML or so of vinegar in the kalk and the PH returns to normal (8.3 at peak) with a few weeks and stays there for a few months.

I'm building a calcium reator in the MACO course and hope to discontinue the above if possible.

I dose DT's every other day or so and swear some of my corals have more colorful polyps since I began using it.

Louey

 

[wombat1]

I add Kalk, a tiny bit of DTs, and do regular water changes. I wish I had been told to do this when I was starting out. I added liquid calcium, Sr, Mb, trace elements, etc. These all cost a ton of money but my corals do just fine now without them.

Partially because of Dr. Ron's articles about salt mixes, and partially because it's easy with my job, I've started doing water changes with natural seawater.

 

[LA-Lawman]

I dose Kalk ( a weak mix) , kent Pro buffer dKH, Strontium, Magnessium and Lugols....


thats it. it is all i have ever dosed on any of my tanks. I do bi-weekly 15% water changes also....

thats
it

ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0

Ca - 550ppm
Mg - 1300ppm
Alk (dKH) - 10

 

[Anonymous]

I dose Kalk ( a weak mix) , kent Pro buffer dKH, Strontium, Magnessium and Lugols....

Why the Strontium? Is is part of the Mag additive? Do you test for iodine? Do you think adding this stuff helps your tank?

 

[beerbaron]

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.

any chance these discussions could be put in a separate splace when completed? since they remain at the top of the list for a week i think they will get special attention and may be nice to have in a special section. atlhough a search for "weekly discussion" would also work.
JMO
BB

 

[M.E.Milz]

I dose Kalk ( a weak mix) , kent Pro buffer dKH, Strontium, Magnessium and Lugols....

Why the Strontium? Is is part of the Mag additive? Do you test for iodine? Do you think adding this stuff helps your tank?

I run a calcium reactor on both my reef and FOWLR tanks. However, I still need to add buffer on occasion to counteract the impact of the large volume of RO top-offs.

I have been back and forth on Strontium, Iodine and Mag additives, and have not seen much of an impact either way. Nevertheless, I do test for Mag and supp as necessary to maintain SW levels. WRT Iodine, my inpression is that it is more beneficial for tanks with lots of soft corals, particularly leathers. WRT to Strom, I do have admit that my sps colonies in my new reef tank do not seem to be experiencing the same growth rates as in my last tank. But this could be because of many factors. Perhaps I should take another look at strom.

 

[danmhippo]

I used to add all sorts of additives. In multiple combinations too. Strontium (liquid & powder), Magnesium (liquid and powder), Lugols, tincture iodine, turbo cal, kalk, Trace mineral, Plus bunch of other gadgets, X-phos, AZNO3, AZPO4, coil denitrator, garlic, pH-UP, Baking powder, yeast, Iron, Miracle dump, combisan, vitamins, vinegar...........

All crap.

Just stick with kalk top-off, plenty of light, Good salt with RODI. Nothing else matters.

 

[SnoopDog]

At one of our meetings just recently I got to see one of our members tank in action. I have never seen in person with such a diverse amount of fish and corals. The thing about it was that he had NO bulbs, no halides. He had anenomes that he had for years. He had a beautiful candy coral that had branched so many times he had to split the colonies on either side of the tank. But the kicker was that the candy was nearly in darkness and thriving. I asked him what he added and he said he added Kent calcium, one squirt when he thought about it which was about once a week. He had no skimmer at all that I saw anywhere. He was adding zero additives other than the Kent and added bottled water when it got low. His tank was at least 6 years old. Totally amazing.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Everyone,
any chance these discussions could be put in a separate splace when completed? since they remain at the top of the list for a week i think they will get special attention and may be nice to have in a special section. atlhough a search for "weekly discussion" would also work.
JMO
BB

It looks like these will be going into a section in the archives. I will let you know exactly where when that gets figured out.

RR