Do I need additives?

LarryJ · Jan 29, 2022

I have a red sea reefer 170, 34 gallon tank plus 9 gallon sump. Subtracting out sand volume,equipment, etc, I am guessing around 40 gallons total water volume.

Tank finished cycling about 6 weeks ago and I have 2 clowns and 3 soft corals in with a couple more fish coming soon.

I change out about 3-1/2 gallons per week using reef crystals as salt mix.

I feed the fish twice a day and spot feed the corals with reef roids twice a week.

While I do some testing, it is mainly sg and alk. I add a nano calcium and a nano alk every other day.

My question is for this size tank and my regimen, should I be dosing other stuff??

I realize I can run various water tests but I am looking for a more simple approach.

any suggestions?

Larry

Uroplatus · Jan 29, 2022

LarryJ said:
I have a red sea reefer 170, 34 gallon tank plus 9 gallon sump. Subtracting out sand volume,equipment, etc, I am guessing around 40 gallons total water volume.

Tank finished cycling about 6 weeks ago and I have 2 clowns and 3 soft corals in with a couple more fish coming soon.

I change out about 3-1/2 gallons per week using reef crystals as salt mix.

I feed the fish twice a day and spot feed the corals with reef roids twice a week.

While I do some testing, it is mainly sg and alk. I add a nano calcium and a nano alk every other day.

My question is for this size tank and my regimen, should I be dosing other stuff??

I realize I can run various water eats but I am looking for a more simple approach.

any suggestions?

Larry

All you have are soft corals correct?

LarryJ · Jan 29, 2022

Yes--- just softies. May add an acan in the future though

Uroplatus · Jan 29, 2022

LarryJ said:
Yes--- just softies. May add an acan in the future though

Do you have coralline?

Dom · Jan 29, 2022

LarryJ said:
I have a red sea reefer 170, 34 gallon tank plus 9 gallon sump. Subtracting out sand volume,equipment, etc, I am guessing around 40 gallons total water volume.

Tank finished cycling about 6 weeks ago and I have 2 clowns and 3 soft corals in with a couple more fish coming soon.

I change out about 3-1/2 gallons per week using reef crystals as salt mix.

I feed the fish twice a day and spot feed the corals with reef roids twice a week.

While I do some testing, it is mainly sg and alk. I add a nano calcium and a nano alk every other day.

My question is for this size tank and my regimen, should I be dosing other stuff??

I realize I can run various water tests but I am looking for a more simple approach.

any suggestions?

Larry

In my experience, with proper weekly water changes, there won't be a need. But your water changes are too small. General practice is 20% water changes weekly.

No need to guess water volume.

(34 gallon tank) + (9 gallon sump) = 43 gallons.

(43 gallons) x 20% = 8.6 gallon water changes weekly.

I would round it up to an even 10 gallons weekly.

PatW · Jan 29, 2022

You do not have Stoney corals so you probably are not going to suffer from calcium, alkalinity and magnesium being depleted. Now, snails do use calcIum and alkalinity to make their shells but unless you have a veritable horde of snails, water changes should handle it.

Soft corals do produce chemicals to knock out competitors and water changes will deal with that. But I do not know how much you would need. I have never fooled around with softies (I have an SPS dominant system). Running charcoal will absorb these chemicals so there is another way to deal with it.

Various growing creatures can deplete trace elements in sea water but I think your current schedule should handle that.

Water changes are good for nutrient export. By nutrients, people usually mean nitrates and phosphates. These are put into the system when you feed your fish. The fish break down the food and the nitrates and phosphates from their metabolism ends up in the water. If you have to much nutrients, you will probably get runaway algae growth. So how much you need in the way of water changes to deal with nutrients depends on how you handle your system. Your current water changes could be fine or not nearly enough for this.