Feeding and dosing 30 gal tank

[ReefZilla]

Okay, I am wanting to make sure that all my little inhabtants are well fed and haveing their other needs met. I have purchased some reef builder and advantage calcium from Seachem. I also have some Reef Calcium liquid from Seachem. Yesterday I purchased PhytoPlex concentrated phytoplankton from KentMarine. I have been adding the ReefBuilder and Advantage Calcium per the directions.

I want to start feeding with the phytoplankton and I would like to know if I should turn off my skimmer or leave it running.

Also I am quite fuzzy on the difference between Reef Calcium, Kalkwasser, and the need for a calcium reactor. Are they all different approaches to the same end?

At the moment we only have 1 acropora, 1 xenia, a feather duster and 2 small ricordia, but we will be adding soon and I want to be ready for a more crowded tank. I also want to encourage coraline algae growth as our coverage is not what I would like.

Also please give me any opinions on sea salt. I have used Instant Ocean but I am hearing bad things about it. Help me if you would to cut through the smoke and mirrors that are often sales driven.

Thx

 

[ChrisRD]

I'm not a big fan of additives (with the exception of two-parts like B-Ionic) and don't use them, so I can't really comment on those products. IME they're not necessary.

As for supplimenting Ca and Alk - it can be accomplished in several ways:

- Dose two separate additives (like the calcium product you mentioned along with an alkalinity product). I wouldn't recommend this method as it can prove difficult to keep Ca and Alk levels in balance.

- Use a balanced two-part additive like B-Ionic (good method IMO but not always economical with very large and/or high Ca/Alk demand systems)

- Use kalkwasser to replace evaporation from the system - this supplies balanced quantities of Ca/Alk and has additional benefits as well.

- Use a calcium reactor. Again, adds Ca/Alk in relatively balanced quantities and is very inexpensive to run. The downside is they are expensive to setup and can be annoying to dial-in (once dialed-in though, they can be very low maintenance). Generally, I'd say a Ca reactor isn't necessary unless you have a system with high Ca/Alk demand.

- Combinations of the above methods.

As for Instant Ocean salt - I'm not sure what bad things you're referring to, but if it's the infamous Shimek test, I wouldn't get too worried. Dr. Shimek's test showed that Crystal Sea Bioassay Mix should be a more biologically "friendly" salt than IO and that hasn't turned out to be the case for many people who've tried it (including myself). There are a few salts out there that are tried-n-true and IO is one of them IMO.

JMO...

 

[ReefZilla]

Thx for the post m8. Very informative.

Just so I understand....IO is an industry standard and one of the accepted salts, so if it is working fine for me no need to sweat the nay sayers. (and)
Kalkwasser seems to be the best solution to my calk/alk needs, as I have a relativly small system.

salute

 

[ChrisRD]

Just so I understand....IO is an industry standard and one of the accepted salts, so if it is working fine for me no need to sweat the nay sayers.

Exactly.

Kalkwasser seems to be the best solution to my calk/alk needs, as I have a relativly small system.

IMO it's a good starting point. If you find kalk alone can't keep up with your Ca/Alk requirements you can always use another method (two-part additive, reactors, etc.) in combination with it.