vlangel
Seahorse whisperer
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2014
- Messages
- 5,794
- Reaction score
- 6,055
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
- What state or country do you live in
- Pennsylvania
Hi all, I've have been reading lots of different threads of folks who use lots of different methods to obtain the results they want in their reefs. What that has taught me is: lots of different methods work and if it is working it is valid. For knowledge's sake I would like to hear everyone's reasoning. Here's what I do.
I have a 36g with a 10g sump, probably around 35g water volume. I have a DSB and a fuge with calerpa and cheato for nitrate removal. I predominantly keep LPS and a crocea clam plus I have 6 fish, 2 shrimp, a serpent star, hermit crabs and bee snails. That's a fairly heavy bioload for my tank and I believe in feeding my animals well so I give a frozen cube a day, varying from ominivore diet and meaty foods like mysis. Because of this I do a 3-4g WC twice a week with IO. I use tap water, (gasp) which I know is fairly high in phosphates. Other than that our municipal water is pretty good. I do prefer the frequent smaller WCs just in case the tap water has a temporary downgrade in quality. I have never had serious algae problems in the 15 years I've kept reef tanks so even though my phosphates run between 1.0-2.0ppm (mg/L) with API I don't see a reason to change to RO/DI or to use gfo or some other phosphate reducing product. In fact I am afraid reducing them could actually have a negative affect on my LPS and clam. I do dose with 2 part, about 10ml of both twice a week with the WCs. I only dose magnesium if my alkalinity is off which is rare. My parameters are ammonia 0, nitrates 0, salinity .024, PH 8.1, alk., 7.84, CA 400, Mag. 1300. My parameters rarely vary from this unless I add new fish and feed heavy to help them settle in. I know these parameters are lower than most folks keep but they are very close to natural seawater. Maybe because of this I don't have large amounts of coraline algae, some on the rock work but never any on the glass or equipment. Perhaps my high phosphates are inhibiting coraline growth too. I'm OK with that as it is less maintenance. This works well for me but I'd love to learn what works for you.
I have a 36g with a 10g sump, probably around 35g water volume. I have a DSB and a fuge with calerpa and cheato for nitrate removal. I predominantly keep LPS and a crocea clam plus I have 6 fish, 2 shrimp, a serpent star, hermit crabs and bee snails. That's a fairly heavy bioload for my tank and I believe in feeding my animals well so I give a frozen cube a day, varying from ominivore diet and meaty foods like mysis. Because of this I do a 3-4g WC twice a week with IO. I use tap water, (gasp) which I know is fairly high in phosphates. Other than that our municipal water is pretty good. I do prefer the frequent smaller WCs just in case the tap water has a temporary downgrade in quality. I have never had serious algae problems in the 15 years I've kept reef tanks so even though my phosphates run between 1.0-2.0ppm (mg/L) with API I don't see a reason to change to RO/DI or to use gfo or some other phosphate reducing product. In fact I am afraid reducing them could actually have a negative affect on my LPS and clam. I do dose with 2 part, about 10ml of both twice a week with the WCs. I only dose magnesium if my alkalinity is off which is rare. My parameters are ammonia 0, nitrates 0, salinity .024, PH 8.1, alk., 7.84, CA 400, Mag. 1300. My parameters rarely vary from this unless I add new fish and feed heavy to help them settle in. I know these parameters are lower than most folks keep but they are very close to natural seawater. Maybe because of this I don't have large amounts of coraline algae, some on the rock work but never any on the glass or equipment. Perhaps my high phosphates are inhibiting coraline growth too. I'm OK with that as it is less maintenance. This works well for me but I'd love to learn what works for you.
