Amino acids

[Hilltopreef90]

What is a good and reasonably priced amino acid to add into my aquarium? I want to be sure my frogspawn and hammer corals are getting enough of what they need to grow and be healthy

 

[gbroadbridge]

I'd suggest if you have reasonable levels of Nitrate and Phosphates, you probably have everything else that your corals require.

If your tank is running Ultra Low Nutrient, Aminos may help...

 

[Hilltopreef90]

I am still battling high nitrates
I do weekly sometimes twice a week water changes, change my filter socks every 3 days, I’m using chaeto in my sump and the chaeto is growing and doing well yet still my nitrates are over 75.0
I was recently told to get down into the sand and siphon out the detritus, which I was told by another “expert” not to do that because it releases ammonia and other bad stuff into the water. I decided to take the other “experts” suggestion and deep clean the tank, my nitrates dropped significantly but are still pretty high 67.3
My phosphates are at a good range though so I’m doing something right
Anyway lately my biggest hammer coral isn’t as full as it was and has retracted a bit
My parameters are all within range except the high nitrates, but the nitrates have been high awhile and the issues with my hammer coral is a recent thing.
I was told hammers and other Stoney corals need amino acids so I’d been adding coral amino by brightwell, I wondered if there was a better one out there or what might help get my hammer looking healthy and happy again ‍

 

[LeftyReefer]

I don't know if aminos will help your hammer, but below are a few amino products that seem to be used by quite a few reefers.

Red Sea AB+ 1L is about $36. Dosage says 8ml per 25gal for SPS dom. tank. (4ml for mixed/frags, and 12ml for ULNS)
AcroPower 1L is about $28. Dosage says 5ml per 25gal, once per week.
ME Aminos polyp extender 1L is about $33. Dosage says 5-6ml per 100gal.

So just going by the stated dosages on the bottle, the ME Aminos seems to be the most concentrated, with 5ml treating 100g, where the same amount is the dosage for 25 gallons of the other two. If you had a 100 gal tank, the ME Aminos would last you 4 times as long as the other two. Is it more concentrated? I don't know.

I wish there was a way to know what was in these as far as concentration of aminos.

 

[gbroadbridge]

I am still battling high nitrates
I do weekly sometimes twice a week water changes, change my filter socks every 3 days, I’m using chaeto in my sump and the chaeto is growing and doing well yet still my nitrates are over 75.0
I was recently told to get down into the sand and siphon out the detritus, which I was told by another “expert” not to do that because it releases ammonia and other bad stuff into the water. I decided to take the other “experts” suggestion and deep clean the tank, my nitrates dropped significantly but are still pretty high 67.3
My phosphates are at a good range though so I’m doing something right
Anyway lately my biggest hammer coral isn’t as full as it was and has retracted a bit
My parameters are all within range except the high nitrates, but the nitrates have been high awhile and the issues with my hammer coral is a recent thing.
I was told hammers and other Stoney corals need amino acids so I’d been adding coral amino by brightwell, I wondered if there was a better one out there or what might help get my hammer looking healthy and happy again ‍

Stirring up an old sand bed can cause a number of issues so tht wasn't bad advice.

In your position I'd do a 50% water change to halve the Nitrates to 30 or so, and then use carbon dosing to bring them down further. Just dose something like vinegar to feed the bacteria that eat nitrate. Over a month or so your nitrates should come down, and then you can continue low carbon dosing to control nitrate.

With high nitrates I definately would not be adding Amino Acids.

 

[LeftyReefer]

Do you have a skimmer?

 

[Hilltopreef90]

Do you have a skimmer?

Yes

 

[Hilltopreef90]

Stirring up an old sand bed can cause a number of issues so tht wasn't bad advice.

In your position I'd do a 50% water change to halve the Nitrates to 30 or so, and then use carbon dosing to bring them down further. Just dose something like vinegar to feed the bacteria that eat nitrate. Over a month or so your nitrates should come down, and then you can continue low carbon dosing to control nitrate.

With high nitrates I definately would not be adding Amino Acids.

I’m not sure what you mean by carbon dosing ?
I have a product by Red Sea but it also reduces phosphates which I don’t have an issue with
I only have 3 fish so I’m probably over feeding ‍
so??? Don’t try and siphon deep into the sand bed ? I’m not stirring the sand up I’m just using the siphon to suck out the detritus deep into the sand, I try to slow the siphon so that I’m not releasing what’s at the bottom into the tank, although I’m sure some is still getting through
I have plenty of snails and other cuc critters that they should be helping with the sand bed
If you never siphon deep into the sand bed how do you ever get the sand bed clean ?

 

[Hilltopreef90]

I'd suggest if you have reasonable levels of Nitrate and Phosphates, you probably have everything else that your corals require.

If your tank is running Ultra Low Nutrient, Aminos may help...

My nitrates are so high the Hanna checker can’t measure them it shows 75.0 which is as high as it measures, I got it down to 67.2 but it was back up the next week
The chaeto obviously isn’t helping much with my nitrates, but for the most part my corals look healthy except for the hammer that started to retract but that was also after I cleaned the sand bed

 

[Coolcasino]

Which of all these amino blends adds the less phosphates. I do like Acro Power because it does not need refrigeration. As cool to dose as Reef Energy is I've been reading it's phosphates in a bottle, just like reef roofs.

 

[Gtinnel]

I recently started using Acropower and my tank has increased nitrate and phosphate levels from it. My corals look happier since I started using it but I think that has more to do with my increased nutrient levels, before my nitrates were always barely above 0.
If you struggle with high nitrates I personally wouldn’t use Acropower. I don’t know if they all increase nutrient levels, although I suspect that they do.

 

[LeftyReefer]

That's why I use it. (to raise nutrients)

I use both AB+ and AcroPower in my tank. I use one or the other, daily, along with live phyto.

My nitrates and phosphates are always low... if I don't dose coral foods daily and feed my fish heavily, nitrates bottom out to 0. My SPS will start to pale when nitrates get too low and will RTN when it actually hits 0.0.

So I feed coral foods (aminos and phyto) daily in order to keep some nitrates in the tank... but when nitrates get too low, I will dose a bit of nitrates directly to bring them back up. I've been dosing Brightwell's NeoNitro, which is sodium nitrate I believe. My bottle was getting low, so I picked up a bottle of the ESV B-Ionic nitrate which is calcium nitrate. Randy said the calcium nitrate is a good option if dosing nitrates, and it was cheaper than the NeoNitro.