Most people at this level (4-5 months) have a crap ton of fish and corals but here I am with salt water rocks. Thank you for hanging in there with this boring boring tank build. No one is reading anyway. This post is boring and not funny so skip.
So I got my ICP back. Aluminum is higher. I am using Maxspect Balls and plates. Low flow and high flow areas of sump. That might be it. Not high enough to even be a worry. Copper is also elevated, but again it's not lethal. My copper test could not even pick up it up. Tin is high, someone told me that's from the tank glass. Iron is higher, but Nyos batch triton test also had elevated iron. So that's probably that. So I need to make a decision on the Maxspect balls and plate. I went with them, because I used them in my pond with amazing results. I thought since my rockwork is sparse they would take up the slack. I have decided to not make any changes until I'm done with the Byropsis treatment. Then I will do some water changes and retest.
I have decided to not do the Moonshiners. It's just so much up front cost and all those bottles and dosing. No it's not for me. It would be 13 bottles daily. Some of these bottles will take years and years to use all of. No smaller bottles are available. Then I ran into some old posts from 2018-2020 where he is asking Randy for help on formulation. So it's like Kent all over again? Hey maybe I will regret it. Maybe not. So it's a no. A sad no. I wanted to do it and have an amazing tank maybe.
Captiv8 Reef Blueprint is cost efficient. I could be up and running for like 5 bucks if I wanted. The customer support is amazing. The email he sent me was through. What hung me up is his calculator figures he sent me a screen shot of were completely different than mine. I don't know if the calculator is not compatible with Google sheets and that's why mine is not like the one he sent, or if I entered something wrong. If what he sent me is what I was able to see then I would have bought the stuff immediately. I am so thankful that he is willing to allow me to email him after every ICP but I have concerns that I need to resort to bothering him instead of using the tool available. He explained to me the expectations on what dosing will do for the tank and had several options on how to achieve said results. I mean you can't ask for anything better. For next to dang near nothing too. So that's sort of something I am thinking about. It's on the back burner for now.
The wife said something last night, she's smarter than me. She said, "What have reefers been using all these years." I was like Kalk and calcium reactors. She was like, "Just do that then." She said it like duh why so stupid? Kalk is an option for sure. But it is messy and that's one piece of extra equipment, same with calcium reactor. It's only 90 gallons, well 100 something with sup. So 2-part is the obvious answer.
Then I got to reading about BRS hybrid with tropic marin. That checks all the boxes nicely. Tropic Marin says, Hey your tank it too new, dont use us for a year, then come on over. It's simple. Easy. Then aqua forest comes over and whispers in my ear, hey, hey you, wanna see what we got? Then they take you into a back alley and instead of a good time you just get robbed and beat up.
So that's what I am up too. Waiting for Reef HD to kill the byropsis. Then I will get some corals finally and more fish. So yeah.
