Unhappy AF tank

[JPK]

Hello, I am looking for some advice.

I will try to keep this as brief as I can, but still attempt to give enough background info so this makes sense.

I have a 75-gallon display that is attached to a 30 gallon frag tank. Total water volume, minus rocks etc, is about 110 gallons (75 gal display, 30 gal frag tank and Trigger ruby 36 sump).

The tank is BB and has been running for about 2 years and is mostly SPS. The tank is pretty heavily stocked with fish and corals. I run a T5/LED Nanobox retrofit fixture.

In the past I was having issues with nutrients, zero P04 and NO3, which I thought may be the cause for pale corals and slower growth. I started dosing both NO3 and PO4 to keep levels detectable, NO3 at about 3- 5 and PO4 and .03. Growth and coloration seemed to improve. I stopped dosing NO3 and PO4 after a few months, but levels remained where I wanted them so I was happy.

I was dosing with ESV B-Ionic 2-part and my tank consumed 100 Mls of each per day. Alk was stable at 8 DKH, CA was at 440 and MG was at 1400. Salinity was stable at 35 and PH fluctuated from about 8.2 to 7.9 each day/night cycle. I used Tropic Marin pro salt.

Growth and coloration were good, but I felt I could do better.

I started using Aquaforest in August 2016. I started with the probiotic salt, the component 1,2,3, Coral A, B, E, V, NP Pro and Pro Bio S. I followed Perry’s dosing schedule, where I alternated with the coral A, B, E, and V every other night with 4 drops of each after lights were out and I used 4 drops of each of the NP Pro and Pro Bio S in the AM (in sump after the protein skimmer). I started with ½ of these doses for the first 2 weeks.

I have 2 liters of Siporax in a reactor and 2 liters of Matrix in the sump. I run the Zeomix, carbon and GFO in its own reactor.

I mix my own component 1,2,3, and make 10 liters at a time. When I first started, my tank would consume 220 Ml of each component a day (which I dose 12 times throughout the day with dosing pumps at different times) with Alk stable at 8 DKH.

Coloration and growth seemed to improve within the first month of use, however my NO3 was steadily climbing, going from 3-5 to about 12-15. I assumed this had to do with the media seeding, so I cut back on feeding. My new feeding regime was 1 cube of frozen and a 2 by 3 inch piece of nori per day. I reduced my dosing of Coral A, B. E and V to 2 drops from 4 drops. Things continued to look great, but my NO3 was still slowly creeping up.

Then something weird occurred near the end of September. Within about 2 days all my coralline algae on the glass died and I noticed burnt tips on some of my acros. I tested the Alk and it had climbed to about 9.5 DKH.

I stopped dosing to bring it back down, and then reduced the amount of component 1,2,3 I was dosing, but things continued to decline. My NO3 began to climb even higher to about 20-25 and my tank was consuming less of the components 1,2,3 each day, making it hard to keep my Alk stable.

I lost several of my sps, and all of my montipora. I stopped all dosing of coral A, E and V (only dosing 2 drops of Coral B every other night).

I sent in a triton test of my water and everything seemed ok except for a slightly elevated level of Tin (6 ug/l). I checked my entire system for potential contamination, and did find one rusty screw above my sump and found a heater with some condensation inside of it.

I ended up replacing all the other heaters that I had in the system and checked all my pumps/powerheads etc, which appeared to be ok.

As of today, I am only dosing 78 Mls per day of the component 1,2,3 (down from 220 mls per day), which is holding my alk steady at 7.5 DKH. I dose 4 drops of each the NP Pro and Pro Bio S in the am and 2 drops of Coral B(uild) every other night.

I switched from the probiotic to the reef salt, and have been doing a 25 gallon water change every week (larger than normal, but I am trying to get the extra nutrients/bad juju out of the system).

My PO4 is at .1 and my No3 is at 35, which I am having a hard time getting down. I run bare bottom and visually my system is clean, no detritus in the tank, frag tank or the sump. I have rinsed my media (siporax/Matrix) in tank water and there is no detritus stuck in the media. I have been changing my zeomix (1 cup), carbon (1 cup) and GFO (1 cup) every 2 weeks to get my PO4 and NO3 down. I feed very little (no pellets, only 1 frozen cube per day, a small amount of nori and I broadcast feed my corals a small amount (AF coral food) once per week).

The SPS corals that survived (75%) are not looking great, but they aren’t worse, and some of the burnt tips seem to be slowly getting better.

Additional info, I live in Southern Ca and our water here is bad, especially where I live due to the drought (we are near the bottom of out emergency water source). I use the 6-stage universal plus BRS RO/DI. I change my sediment filter every 2 weeks (1 micron), and I add a new universal carbon filter every month (rotate one out). I am constantly re-filling my DI resin and my TDS coming out of the filter is always 0.

I contacted the city’s water department, and they advised that there have not been any changes to the chemicals added to the water, or other issues (they do, and have, used chloramines for several years).

I have not lost any fish, and I have checked on my CUC to make sure there aren’t a bunch of dead snails or something else like that in the system causing issues. I removed all the dead coralline algae flakes from the bottom of the tank.

My guess is either there was a bad heater that was contaminating the tank, I got a bad slug of water from the city, something found its way into the tank (possibly via my cat/girlfriend) or ???.

My goal is to get my NO3 back down to the 2-5 range and my PO4 back to that .03 spot before I start back up on the Coral A, E and V.

Any advice on how to fight this NO3 spike and what may have caused this overall issue?

If you have any questions please ask, I can supply pictures or whatever else

Thanks

Jason

 

[jenreefer]

Beautiful tank, following along in hopes of learning some. Good luck.

 

[JPK]

Thanks Jenreefer
If it helps, here are my latest results from Triton.
My tin value was 7.27 not 6., and there was also a small aluminum value (4.53) and some iron 5.58.
I use a Hanna checker for PO4, Red Sea for No3/Ca and Salifert for Alk/Mg

Jason

 

[jenreefer]

I look forward to hearing what those who understand the Triton tests have to say.

 

[Eggyoke]

I had a weird episode with AF too. So I got a algae bloom that I'm dealing with. NO3 and PO4 is still low. I dose component 123 and coral ABEV. I have a smaller tank so I was dosing 63 ml of 123 total split 12 times a day. I thought I got my dosing down and my ALk raised to 9.5. I adjusted my dosing and right now I'm down to 12 ml of each, ALK is stable at 7.9 for the past few days. Is that a good thing? Money wise yes. Maybe it's the mineral salt, who knows. I have a half gallon left but I don't want to call it quits just yet. I was wondering if the Coral ABEV is designed to be used with the Zeo Mix. Seem strange to put supplements in just to remove them but worth a try. I just ordered Zeo and will give it one last try before I switch back to Fauna Marin balling.

 

[Eggyoke]

Another thing is I was reading Fauna Marin's balling method and they said mineral salts is the old method and it causes an imbalance. Fauna Marin ALk CAL and MAG is a bit expensive so I'm going to use BRS 2/3 part with the balling trace and color.

 

[Todd31]

I don't know if it would be in conflict with any of the other products you are using but I had quick success reducing nitrate through carbon dosing with NOPOX.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Have you tested your rodi water to see if nitrates are getting through? I just had an episode where I was using 0 tds water but nitrates were coming through.

 

[Perry]

This is a copy and paste from my journal on another forum, but very similar to @Pedoconfuego


Update:

I have a bit of unfortunate news regarding the tank. I will do my best to keep it short. I acquired 2 liters of Life Bio Fil in San Diego, months back, brought it home and put it online passive in a basket. I then removed 4 liters of matrix, it was already in a basket passive, so I simply took the basket and set it outside, where it was exposed to weather. At first this transition went well, and I was able to still achieve my same normal parameters, despite a net loss of 2 liters of bio media. I still had 2 liters of siporax that ran active in a reactor, and now 2 liters of Life Bio Fil.

During this time, My nano was empty, so after a couple of weeks of the matrix sitting outside, I though what the heck, there is nothing in the tank, so I put the matrix in the nano, there was no life, so I thought maybe the bacteria would come back. So after 2 weeks, of running in the nano, I had the great idea to put the matrix back in my display, HUGE MISTAKE! My nitrates were steady around 5ppm, increased due to the net loss of 2 liters of bio media, still a good number, and corals looked great, so I thought the matrix would then bring me down to 1-2ppm, then I could feed like crazy. Well, after a few days and into the next week or two, I noticed my Red Robin was looking really drab, like washed out. My nitrates had increased to 20ppm, other corals were really starting to darken, so I pulled the matrix.

I did some water changes, and managed to pull nitrates back down to 10ppm, but the damage was done, because the Red Robin was irritated, it stopped growth, and due to it being a larger colony, this caused my KH to increase. I was steady at 7.56 dkh for several months, but due to this one coral stopping it's growth, my alk shifted to 8.5 slowly, unsuspecting to me. This process began with the increased nitrates, but over several days and weeks, the alk was growing, given my params were super stable, I did not see the firestorm coming.

When I tested at 8.5dkh, I was now experiencing tip burn on the Red Robin, which then went to my Blue Tort, Chips Acro, and Slimer. It seems the stags do not like this alk level. I should have not stayed at 7.56dkh, given a 1 point increase is most certainly where the corals will start to get ****ed, so I have since brought that value to around 6.8-7.0 dkh, this gives me a bit more wiggle room. So, all in all not a good month, but the tank is on the mend, and the other sps in the tank look amazing, so a few ****ed corals won't ruin my day

Biological/ Equipment Update:

So I was lucky enough to get the AF 150 Reactor recently, and I found some Sera Siporax at the last Aquatics show I attended. So I am now running 5 liters of siporax in the AF 150 reactor, and 2 liters of Life Bio Fil in a TLF 550 reactor. So that is a total of 7 liters of bio media. This switch happened a week ago, and with no water changes I am now back down to 2.5ppm on nitrates and 0.02 on Phosphates. Isn't life on the reef a blast

 

[Marquiseo]

I had a similar experience as yours. I used the probiotic salt with the additives and 3 part. I can tell you it was the worst mistake of my whole reefing time frame. I lost several sps frags and colonies. I, also, run barebottom and had an increase in nitrates despite all my marine pure blocks and consistent bacteria dosing. The AF system seem unstable and I won't ever use it again; I tossed everything from it in garbage. I have since done a 100% WC with my old salt of choice RS Blue bucket and corals have immediately started to respond; blastos, zoas, and acans were retracted and are now fully open.

 

[Anirban]

Hello, I am looking for some advice.

I will try to keep this as brief as I can, but still attempt to give enough background info so this makes sense.

I have a 75-gallon display that is attached to a 30 gallon frag tank. Total water volume, minus rocks etc, is about 110 gallons (75 gal display, 30 gal frag tank and Trigger ruby 36 sump).

The tank is BB and has been running for about 2 years and is mostly SPS. The tank is pretty heavily stocked with fish and corals. I run a T5/LED Nanobox retrofit fixture.

In the past I was having issues with nutrients, zero P04 and NO3, which I thought may be the cause for pale corals and slower growth. I started dosing both NO3 and PO4 to keep levels detectable, NO3 at about 3- 5 and PO4 and .03. Growth and coloration seemed to improve. I stopped dosing NO3 and PO4 after a few months, but levels remained where I wanted them so I was happy.

I was dosing with ESV B-Ionic 2-part and my tank consumed 100 Mls of each per day. Alk was stable at 8 DKH, CA was at 440 and MG was at 1400. Salinity was stable at 35 and PH fluctuated from about 8.2 to 7.9 each day/night cycle. I used Tropic Marin pro salt.

Growth and coloration were good, but I felt I could do better.

I started using Aquaforest in August 2016. I started with the probiotic salt, the component 1,2,3, Coral A, B, E, V, NP Pro and Pro Bio S. I followed Perry’s dosing schedule, where I alternated with the coral A, B, E, and V every other night with 4 drops of each after lights were out and I used 4 drops of each of the NP Pro and Pro Bio S in the AM (in sump after the protein skimmer). I started with ½ of these doses for the first 2 weeks.

I have 2 liters of Siporax in a reactor and 2 liters of Matrix in the sump. I run the Zeomix, carbon and GFO in its own reactor.

I mix my own component 1,2,3, and make 10 liters at a time. When I first started, my tank would consume 220 Ml of each component a day (which I dose 12 times throughout the day with dosing pumps at different times) with Alk stable at 8 DKH.

Coloration and growth seemed to improve within the first month of use, however my NO3 was steadily climbing, going from 3-5 to about 12-15. I assumed this had to do with the media seeding, so I cut back on feeding. My new feeding regime was 1 cube of frozen and a 2 by 3 inch piece of nori per day. I reduced my dosing of Coral A, B. E and V to 2 drops from 4 drops. Things continued to look great, but my NO3 was still slowly creeping up.

Then something weird occurred near the end of September. Within about 2 days all my coralline algae on the glass died and I noticed burnt tips on some of my acros. I tested the Alk and it had climbed to about 9.5 DKH.

I stopped dosing to bring it back down, and then reduced the amount of component 1,2,3 I was dosing, but things continued to decline. My NO3 began to climb even higher to about 20-25 and my tank was consuming less of the components 1,2,3 each day, making it hard to keep my Alk stable.

I lost several of my sps, and all of my montipora. I stopped all dosing of coral A, E and V (only dosing 2 drops of Coral B every other night).

I sent in a triton test of my water and everything seemed ok except for a slightly elevated level of Tin (6 ug/l). I checked my entire system for potential contamination, and did find one rusty screw above my sump and found a heater with some condensation inside of it.

I ended up replacing all the other heaters that I had in the system and checked all my pumps/powerheads etc, which appeared to be ok.

As of today, I am only dosing 78 Mls per day of the component 1,2,3 (down from 220 mls per day), which is holding my alk steady at 7.5 DKH. I dose 4 drops of each the NP Pro and Pro Bio S in the am and 2 drops of Coral B(uild) every other night.

I switched from the probiotic to the reef salt, and have been doing a 25 gallon water change every week (larger than normal, but I am trying to get the extra nutrients/bad juju out of the system).

My PO4 is at .1 and my No3 is at 35, which I am having a hard time getting down. I run bare bottom and visually my system is clean, no detritus in the tank, frag tank or the sump. I have rinsed my media (siporax/Matrix) in tank water and there is no detritus stuck in the media. I have been changing my zeomix (1 cup), carbon (1 cup) and GFO (1 cup) every 2 weeks to get my PO4 and NO3 down. I feed very little (no pellets, only 1 frozen cube per day, a small amount of nori and I broadcast feed my corals a small amount (AF coral food) once per week).

The SPS corals that survived (75%) are not looking great, but they aren’t worse, and some of the burnt tips seem to be slowly getting better.

Additional info, I live in Southern Ca and our water here is bad, especially where I live due to the drought (we are near the bottom of out emergency water source). I use the 6-stage universal plus BRS RO/DI. I change my sediment filter every 2 weeks (1 micron), and I add a new universal carbon filter every month (rotate one out). I am constantly re-filling my DI resin and my TDS coming out of the filter is always 0.

I contacted the city’s water department, and they advised that there have not been any changes to the chemicals added to the water, or other issues (they do, and have, used chloramines for several years).

I have not lost any fish, and I have checked on my CUC to make sure there aren’t a bunch of dead snails or something else like that in the system causing issues. I removed all the dead coralline algae flakes from the bottom of the tank.

My guess is either there was a bad heater that was contaminating the tank, I got a bad slug of water from the city, something found its way into the tank (possibly via my cat/girlfriend) or ???.

My goal is to get my NO3 back down to the 2-5 range and my PO4 back to that .03 spot before I start back up on the Coral A, E and V.

Any advice on how to fight this NO3 spike and what may have caused this overall issue?

If you have any questions please ask, I can supply pictures or whatever else

Thanks

Jason

When you changed the salts?

 

[bubbaque]

I had a similar experience as yours. I used the probiotic salt with the additives and 3 part. I can tell you it was the worst mistake of my whole reefing time frame. I lost several sps frags and colonies. I, also, run barebottom and had an increase in nitrates despite all my marine pure blocks and consistent bacteria dosing. The AF system seem unstable and I won't ever use it again; I tossed everything from it in garbage. I have since done a 100% WC with my old salt of choice RS Blue bucket and corals have immediately started to respond; blastos, zoas, and acans were retracted and are now fully open.

I had a very similar experience as yours. I had to do large water changes to get the AF products out but finally my system is recovering.

 

[Anirban]

This is a copy and paste from my journal on another forum, but very similar to @Pedoconfuego


Update:

I have a bit of unfortunate news regarding the tank. I will do my best to keep it short. I acquired 2 liters of Life Bio Fil in San Diego, months back, brought it home and put it online passive in a basket. I then removed 4 liters of matrix, it was already in a basket passive, so I simply took the basket and set it outside, where it was exposed to weather. At first this transition went well, and I was able to still achieve my same normal parameters, despite a net loss of 2 liters of bio media. I still had 2 liters of siporax that ran active in a reactor, and now 2 liters of Life Bio Fil.

During this time, My nano was empty, so after a couple of weeks of the matrix sitting outside, I though what the heck, there is nothing in the tank, so I put the matrix in the nano, there was no life, so I thought maybe the bacteria would come back. So after 2 weeks, of running in the nano, I had the great idea to put the matrix back in my display, HUGE MISTAKE! My nitrates were steady around 5ppm, increased due to the net loss of 2 liters of bio media, still a good number, and corals looked great, so I thought the matrix would then bring me down to 1-2ppm, then I could feed like crazy. Well, after a few days and into the next week or two, I noticed my Red Robin was looking really drab, like washed out. My nitrates had increased to 20ppm, other corals were really starting to darken, so I pulled the matrix.

I did some water changes, and managed to pull nitrates back down to 10ppm, but the damage was done, because the Red Robin was irritated, it stopped growth, and due to it being a larger colony, this caused my KH to increase. I was steady at 7.56 dkh for several months, but due to this one coral stopping it's growth, my alk shifted to 8.5 slowly, unsuspecting to me. This process began with the increased nitrates, but over several days and weeks, the alk was growing, given my params were super stable, I did not see the firestorm coming.

When I tested at 8.5dkh, I was now experiencing tip burn on the Red Robin, which then went to my Blue Tort, Chips Acro, and Slimer. It seems the stags do not like this alk level. I should have not stayed at 7.56dkh, given a 1 point increase is most certainly where the corals will start to get ****ed, so I have since brought that value to around 6.8-7.0 dkh, this gives me a bit more wiggle room. So, all in all not a good month, but the tank is on the mend, and the other sps in the tank look amazing, so a few ****ed corals won't ruin my day

Biological/ Equipment Update:

So I was lucky enough to get the AF 150 Reactor recently, and I found some Sera Siporax at the last Aquatics show I attended. So I am now running 5 liters of siporax in the AF 150 reactor, and 2 liters of Life Bio Fil in a TLF 550 reactor. So that is a total of 7 liters of bio media. This switch happened a week ago, and with no water changes I am now back down to 2.5ppm on nitrates and 0.02 on Phosphates. Isn't life on the reef a blast

Hey Perry, I was wondering about the incident you faced. Do you think the matrix and all these porous media actually holds a lot of biological detritus which the bacteria actually use. But when we keep them out of tank then those things actually decompose and in turn can generate lot of nitrate if put back in the system. I completely understand your observation regarding how nitrate can impact the growth and kh of the system. But also I observed in my system that the balance is somewhat dependent on the weather.....like I saw my system now uses less of the components since the winter came in. But the system is growing so no issues but I am trying to figure out why?

 

[Anirban]

I had a weird episode with AF too. So I got a algae bloom that I'm dealing with. NO3 and PO4 is still low. I dose component 123 and coral ABEV. I have a smaller tank so I was dosing 63 ml of 123 total split 12 times a day. I thought I got my dosing down and my ALk raised to 9.5. I adjusted my dosing and right now I'm down to 12 ml of each, ALK is stable at 7.9 for the past few days. Is that a good thing? Money wise yes. Maybe it's the mineral salt, who knows. I have a half gallon left but I don't want to call it quits just yet. I was wondering if the Coral ABEV is designed to be used with the Zeo Mix. Seem strange to put supplements in just to remove them but worth a try. I just ordered Zeo and will give it one last try before I switch back to Fauna Marin balling.

Are you using mineral salt as a salt? I hope not right.

 

[JPK]

Thanks for the replies everyone. This has definitely been frustrating.

To answer some of the questions

I did test my freshly mixed salt water, and NO3 and PO4 were both zero. I also tested the TDS in my fresh water and ATO reservoirs (25 and 10 gallon), both were zero. I ordered a new Red sea NO3 refill kit, just in case my test is off.

I stopped using the probiotic salt (switched to the AF reef salt) at the end on September, after I noticed things going haywire. I have been using the AF reefsalt, which is just NSW salt as far as I can tell.

It is still hard to believe how drastic the change to Alk/Ca consumption has been (142 mls less per day of each component), and how much my NO3 and Po4 levels have increased. A few months ago I was doing everything I could to get them to even register on my test kits. I am hoping that this was a result of a bad piece of equipment (leaking heater) or some unrelated water chemistry issue (resulting in the loss of bacteria. etc), vs the AF system not agreeing with the nuances of my particular system. However, others mentioning that they had simiar issues with the AF system is concerning to say the least.

I have been eyeballing a larger reactor which is on sale until tomorrow. Maybe I'll switch to a larger reactor with a few more liters of Siporax, and ditch the passive Matrix for a few liters of Bio Fil, when it is available. I can put the bio fil in the smaller reactor that the siprorax was in.

All in all, I will continue down this path with the goal of stability (and justifying the $$$ investment buying all the AF products), but if things don't start to get better by the new year I may slowly switch back to what has worked in the past.

So I basicdally will just be dosing the 1,2,3, carbon dosing (NP pro/Pro Bio S) and using a small amount of the Coral B. I will hold off on all the other aspects of the system, such as the probiotic salt and Coral A,E and V.

Jason

 

[Perry]

Hi @Anirban
Yes, that dead media is what likely caused the increase in NO3, which then shut down one large colony, that large colony was enough to cause mineral absorption to slough, as a result, rising alk, not good in the sps world. My threshold is 8.5dkh, exceeding that range is where the stags, mostly affected, begin to show burnt tips. This has ZERO to do with AF, my other 50+ acros are looking awesome. I do feel that there are factors, again not AF related that happen when you have huge colonies of acros. For example, I have also decreased my dosing down, but I switched 2 ABS bulbs out for B+, so my growth is going to halt regardless, and many sps reefers out there are not keen to these changes. Many sps aquarists never really get to that point to understand. This tank I have has several large colonies, quite honestly the largest ones I have achieved in all my 12 years of keeping sps. So, we learn, and when you run a system that depends on lower values, we learn to not make these mistakes again. If I had a nickel for every thread I have read where someone wants to blame a system for their "crash" or system failures related to a bacteria driven system, I would be loaded, lol... Fact is that many times, we find aquarists who still do not have these learned experiences, and make knee jerk reactions, which causes further issues down the line. More often than not, it is the USER, not the SYSTEM that fails, lol... So, I repeat, my issues were totally related to me, not the products that AF produces. In short order, I will have things on the up and up again, right now I am allowing the corals to heal naturally, and my dosers are set to lower values so that I force mineral uptake, I suspect it will take a few weeks for corals to heal and re-grow over the dead tips, but not overly concerned right now. We need to consider with dosing systems, Ca Rx, Kalkwasser, etc, that temp changes, bulb changes, bulb deterioration, nutrient spikes, pests, coral nippers(fish), can all cause the corals to absorb less minerals. This is why it is key to observe with sps systems, regardless of what type of system you run. I would suspect in your case the heater running for the first time could have irritated the corals which slowed down mineral uptake, but it is really hard to tell when you cannot observe the system. Hope all is well, happy reefing

 

[bubbaque]

Would the dead media cause an increase in nitrates when to me it seemed he just added those to whatever filtration he was using? I didn't read where he removed any of his old bacteria.

I feel you are seeing people blame AF lately is because people's system are running perfectly until they switch to AF. My system crashed literally a few days after trying AF. On the other popular forum I have had people private message after I posted what happened to my system and say the same thing was happening to them. Everyone seems to have the same exact issues.

I am not so sure how it's the USER who fails when it's literally just adding a few drops. Those few drops was all that needed to start the downward spiral.

 

[bubbaque]

When I started using AF my Sps browned out and started to rtn, this was only after a few days with AF. I instantly started doing large water changes to get the product out. I posted the AF for sale and stopped using it. After about another week my wife said to give it another try since I just spent $200 on AF. I dosed the products and the NEXT day my sps started to rtn again. I did large waters again and put it up for sale again to never look back.

 

[Perry]

Would the dead media cause an increase in nitrates when to me it seemed he just added those to whatever filtration he was using? I didn't read where he removed any of his old bacteria.

I feel you are seeing people blame AF lately is because people's system are running perfectly until they switch to AF. My system crashed literally a few days after trying AF. On the other popular forum I have had people private message after I posted what happened to my system and say the same thing was happening to them. Everyone seems to have the same exact issues.

I am not so sure how it's the USER who fails when it's literally just adding a few drops. Those few drops was all that needed to start the downward spiral.

My quote :
"Fact is that many times, we find aquarists who still do not have these learned experiences, and make knee jerk reactions, which causes further issues down the line. More often than not, it is the USER, not the SYSTEM that fails, lol... " If a few drops caused these issues, then I am obviously not addressing you, and I think the reply was intended for Arniban, was it not? @bubbaque I have witnessed many users of systems like Zeovit, BW Neo Zeo, Prodibio, AF, Fauna Marin, as a few that I have actually used myself. I have actually made mistakes and I can own up to my own errors Yes I have seen so many "USER's" turn around and claim it was the products, and in many cases it was the misuse of products or lack of knowledge that led to their tank's issues. Sometimes lack of husbandry skills, lack of maintenance, oversights, and lack of observation are what leads to these issues. I apologize if you feel in any way I am trying to insult you, but I am here sharing experiences to help guide AF users, not bicker whether the products work or not. Heck, I invite you to my home and come and see for yourself firsthand my tank and the AF system running. Best wishes to you and all aquairsts out there, we are in the quest for happy and healthy tanks. Cheers

 

[bubbaque]

Fair enough.