Back to the topic:
Everybody has their own way to run a reef. The best reefs I’ve seen are aged, typically run a CaRx, Kalk, and CO2 scrubber. Of course not all of them, but if you go look at a lot of TOTM’s, you’ll see commonalities. Yes, I do understand not one tank back them ran on Moonshine, so why would I or anybody else choose this method or similar methods today? For me this is less about a product or method and more about Chemistry.
Here’s my observations:
Keeping tight chemistry produces results. The water quality is everything in a reef. From what I see in my own reef tighter chemistry produces better color, health, and corals simply grow faster. I’m not saying you can’t keep a reef with some elements low or depleted, because you can. You definitely can. I just don’t believe it’s the most optimal way for the fastest growth, and you will be “more likely” to run into problems. This is just my anecdotal observations. I mean I don’t know about you guys, but I need all the help I can get.
I looked at a public ICP of an elite reefer in a YouTube video. Much respect for this guy. However, many elements on the ICP were low or nearly depleted, and Iodine was about 7x the normal level. His corals are super nice, he gets good growth, and most would consider him to be one of our veteran reefers in the hobby. The corals look excellent despite the chemistry being what many would consider suboptimal. The guy knows how to keep his reef. So of course corals can grow without dialing everything in, but I often wonder how ridiculously insane his tanks would look if he “did” dial the elements in tighter, and how much “more” growth he would receive?! Not only growth, but light protection and parasitic resistance. Chris Meckley seems to understand the importance of good chemistry now, and I’d bet he’d tell you he’s appreciated much better growth than ever before at his farm. So for those that seem to be against Reef Moonshiner’s, I’d highly recommend tying their method or full Triton. At the very least, send a quantity ICP like OCEAMO and correct your major elements. We all correct salinity, ALK, CAL, and MAG…but many stop at Boron, Bromide, Potassium, and Strontium. Why? If the corals are sucking it down on every ICP I’d say it’s probably important because their using it. I understand this is only anecdotal evidence, but come on. Dose some Windex into your system, and see if they consume that. Lol.
I think what it boils down to is that most folks simply don’t know how to go beyond the basics. You need to know the potency of the product, how many ppm’s or ppb’s to add, your target, and how long to run out a correction dose. If you try to dose X amount of X product all in one day you can crash your reef. With ICP analyses and calculators this is made easy, and what was once impossible for some is now made possible for all! Even newbies can keep their reefs at a pro level today. This is because of the work that many veterans have accomplished from sharing anecdotal evidence, information, experiences across borders. It takes some time to figure this stuff out, but we find ourselves here today.
Take a guy like Coral Fragz for example. That guy grows corals fast enough to easily quit his day job just from one system alone if he had enough demand. I’ve had many conversations about how he runs that system, and it’s not simple by any means. The guy has everything calculated out and it’s growing like crazy. He’s definitely smarter than me. Andre is the same way…next level reefer.
The bottom line is that reefing isn’t easy although people always try to act like it is. It takes work to grow and maintain corals. It takes dedication. You “can” do it the easy way, but people like Andre or Coral Fragz will smoke you to the finish line, because they’re keeping the entire chemistry in check. You may arrive, but you’ll be late to the party, and you’ll likely have more problems than they will along the way. There’s definitely something to be said for a well established system like Jda’s (10+ years), but how much better would it be? That’s the question. What would the colors look like? Jda will tell you it wouldn’t be any different, but I continue to see much better colors and growth in every single system that is correcting elements and continuing to bring the chemistry to a higher level. I think most people that have tried it will tell you the same.
