Okay everyone,
@Bulk Reef Supply, hold my beer, my time has come.
So I’ve been dosing all for reef for over 8 months now. I’ve gone through multiple bottles. I switched from BRS 3 part. (It’s not 2 part, I don’t care who you are, it needs the magnesium to be balanced in high demand situations. Especially high demand sps nano)
The original post about the brown stuff, yes I’ve bought bottles on my LFS shelf that may have been in the same place for months. There is some brown/red (what ever color you see). I shake the bottle a couple mins, poof, no more settled on the bottom.
Yes there are also some “floating” particles you can see in the bottle. Haven’t seen a problem from them, and I use every last drop from EVERY bottle.
And to be fair, I dose by hand twice every day, so I “swirl” the bottle around before pouring it into my measuring cup to dose it. I love being hands on with my tank every day when I get home from work, but that’s me. I guess I understand some people want to not touch their tanks... I mean, I don’t put my hands actually into my tank very often, but I do put my hands all over the outside constantly with feeding, dosing, and glass/equipment cleanings.
Yes, I use a Kamoer X1 doser when I go on vacation. I set it up usually a week prior to going to monitor it and dial it in. Haven’t had issues with that. If it’s a really long vacation my tank sitter knows what they’re doing. I understand not everyone has that, but believe me, someone you trust can be trained by you for what you want them to look at.
So as to address the fixed numbers you get “stuck at” with using this product. So my tank has stabilized as follows,
Calcium: ~420-440
Alkalinity: ~8.8-9.3
Magnesium:~1420-1440
Now, the reason the numbers I’ve given you are split is because over the last 7 months my tank has been very stable and never gone outside of this window. You have to understand that as coral grows, the rate that elements are used in your tank is not linear and will always change. It’s this thinking that has worked for me. Constant alkalinity monitoring has become all I’ve needed and the calcium and magnesium are always in that range. Alkalinity moves around a lot day to day so as I’ve said, I test alkalinity almost daily.
I have been doing 20%(~5gallons) weekly water changes with Tropic Marin Pro-Reef since I started the tank. Also have been making my own RODI water since then. I’m kind of picky how my water changes are done, the water is mixed for MINIMUM 24 hours before I use it. I almost always make the water for the next change the day after the water change, allowing that new water to mix for almost a week. I ONLY match my salinity, alkalinity, and temperatures. I bump the alkalinity with soda ash around an hour before the water change.
Now, I understand this was all very long winded and can seem like way too much effort/time. But once you’ve developed a rhythm with the animals you’re caring for, it’s nothing.
I want to thank BRS again for featuring my tank on their first episode of
#BRStvReacts.
I want to thank
@Lou Ekus for always being there for others who use this and all other great TM products. I will continue to use them forever on all of my reef aquariums.
If you want to skip past all that jargon,
It’s great stuff. My tank is very stable.
Oh look how pretty.
29 gallon Biocube dosing 25-28ml daily
Tank started 3-10-19.
Oh, and I started reefing 11-10-18...
Happy Reefing!!
. Ive been using this product for around 8 months also, and its probably my favourite product in reefing to be honest. The only drawback has been the price, but I bought a 5 Litre value bottle, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be for sale any more. I was happy to see you can actually mix it yourself for a cheaper price though, I will probably do that next as the dosing demand in my tank increases.
