Reef Aquarium Additives and Supplements!

[Sputnik]

Hey all

Just wanted to see what do you use for your reef systems, additives - supplements, any trace elements?

I'm not really happy with my corals color. The only additive i use is ESV B-ionic 2 part Calcium and Alkalinity!

 

[tosiek]

What type and brand of lighting are you using? It could be as simple of a change as changing your bulbs to a bluer K rating. A lot of coral look very bland and brown if using 10k MH or a 10k T5 range. Going a whiter 10/12k or 14k and/or adding supplements helps a lot with coloration. Even tank placement of certain coral can affect its coloration.

Also, depending on the corals, Po4 and No3 play a role in coral coloration.
There is no magic recipe for coral color with additives. Your weekly water changes should add anything that the coral need for color and growth and remove the Po4 and No3 that you don't want in there. You should be just dosing calc/alk to make up what the coral are using daily for growth and maybe mag for heavy coraline and SPS growing tanks.

Post up your lighting and maintenance schedule as well as tank parameters and we'll help fix the problem with the coral. Its not because your not adding some type of coral enhancing additive.

 

[charliethetuna88]

I use esv cal/ alk/ mag and I just started dosing about 2 weeks ago mb7,biofuel,and coralcolor all from brIghtwell,stuff seams to be working one of my faded out green bubble anenome is coloring up real nice and actually turning a pink rainbow color well see what happens

 

[charliethetuna88]

But water changes help the most in my opion

 

[Sputnik]

Thanks guys

My 50 gallon is 3 months old, my lighting system is AquaticLife T5HO 2) 10k 39w, 2) Actinic 39w and 4) Moon LED's 160 watt total output!I dose B-ionic every day 15ml. of each Ca/Alk! 10% Monthly water change!

Water Params:

Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 0
Phosphate = 0
PH = 8.0-8.3
Ca = 420-440
dKH = 8-8.5
SG = 1.025
Temp = 77-78F

My corals simply look very pale and i think it's due to lack of minor and major trace elements in the water column, so i just bought Ecosystem Aquarium Reef Solution, what do you think about this supplement? I've read allot of positive review on it!

 

[Sputnik]

My corals:

Green Monti Cap, Green Monti Digi, Devil's Hand Leather, Pulsing Xenia, Red/Purple/Bi-color Mushrooms, Nuclear Green Polyps, Green Star Polyps, Brown Button Polys, Yellow Polys, Zoanthids, Sun Coral, Dendrophyllia Fistula, Pink-Green Ricordea, Torch Coral.

 

[tosiek]

You might want to look into dosing some extra iron. It will help with pale looking coral. Do some research =0)

 

[Sputnik]

The lights just came on, so the corals are not fully open yet!

Yellow Polyps... They look fine!

Torch doesn't look too colorful!

Dendro... Not sure how it looks, never seen any other ones to compare!

Ricordea... Colors definitely out of whack!

Green Star Polys are new in my tank, look OK!

Green MontiCap... well, looks awful, but it does growing!

Green MontiDigi, i don't know, it don't look too bright, but it's growing!

Brown Button Polys are not as brown as they were!

Nuclear Green Polys are also new and look OK!

Devil's Hand Leather look almost white....

Sun Coral is not fully open yet, but there is no true bright yellow tentacles, it's more pale!

Zhoanthids... now these guys got messed up in the last couple of weeks! When i got them, they were Green-ish/Brown on the out side and Red-ish on the in side and now it's all bright yellow!

Bi-color Mushroom? It looks like it's melting! The usual color is like a dark red wine!

Pulsing Xenia... looks OK i guess!?

Purple Mushroom... New in my tank, so far so good!

Sorry about picture quality, old Sony camera!

 

[jcs11236]

Your problem is water changes. 10% water change a month is no good. You should be doing weekly water changes of 20-25%

 

[Wes]

Your problem is water changes. 10% water change a month is no good. You should be doing weekly water changes of 20-25%

That's a bit extreme.


Sent from my iPhone using Reefs

 

[Sputnik]

Does anyone use Ecosystem Aquarium Reef Solution, if yes what are the effects!