Anybody ever use Polyp Lab One?

SaltLifer · Jan 18, 2018

Has anybody ever used Polyp Lab One for dosing? Seems too good to be true. One bottle doses Calcium, Mag and Alk. Claims to maintain 7 dkh, 400 calc and 1300 mag without raising salinity.

Christoph · Jan 18, 2018

Hello,

i dont know this specific product but the claimed results can only be obtained using an organic calcium salt (acetate, formiate or gluconate/lactate). So the product is likely to consume oxygen, lower pH and fuel bacterial groth. I would only use such a product in highly aerated (skimmed) tanks during the daytime.

Best regards from Vienna,
Christoph

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 18, 2018

It is largely calcium and magnesium acetate. Other companies have similar products (Salifert All In One, Tropic Marin Carbocalcium).

This sort of product will work, but it is adding a fixed amount of organic carbon, whether you want/need it or not. So if demand for alk and calcium is on the medium to high end, the "dose" of organic carbon is pretty high.

SaltLifer · Jan 19, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
It is largely calcium and magnesium acetate. Other companies have similar products (Salifert All In One, Tropic Marin Carbocalcium).

This sort of product will work, but it is adding a fixed amount of organic carbon, whether you want/need it or not. So if demand for alk and calcium is on the medium to high end, the "dose" of organic carbon is pretty high.

As in "carbon dosing"? I don't check my parameters as often as I should and I'm having some GHA issues right now. My demand for alk and calcium isn't huge yet. So theoretically, could this reduce nutrients at the same time or am I way off base?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 19, 2018

SaltLifer said:
As in "carbon dosing"? I don't check my parameters as often as I should and I'm having some GHA issues right now. My demand for alk and calcium isn't huge yet. So theoretically, could this reduce nutrients at the same time or am I way off base?

Yes, carbon dosing.

Yes, it will likely reduce nutrients, perhaps beneficially, or perhaps more than optimally to undesirably low levels. That's why I'm not usually a fan of tying two such unrelated effects into one fixed ratio.

FWIW, the Tropic Marin product will have substantially less carbon dosing effect since it uses less organic material.