Naturalreef
Member
My most successful tank was a biocube 14 with chaeto in the back chamber lit by a submersible pond bulb 15 years ago. I could feed the tank what I wanted without any fear of algae blooms. All inhabitants were plump and healthy. Water crystal clear with monthly 10% water changes. Then, the latest and greatest equipment bug bit hard and I thought I needed all these gadgets to have the best reef aquarium. What I learned was that I put my coral through a lot of stress trying to get a super clean tank with gfo,bacteria, vodka, vinegar etc. lost a lot of beautiful sps and time that they could have been growing into colonies.
I took my skimmer and gfo reactor offline and purchased a chaeto reactor to combat nitrates and phosphates. After a week, I'm thrilled with how my tank is responding! Water is crystal clear, nitrates are around 5 and phosphate zero. No need to wipe the glass or pumps or? everything is algae free. Even the brown algae is gone....All sps polyps are extended and happy......thrilled! I have been feeding heavy so I can still measure nitrates, which feels weird since I used to worry about fouling the tank. I found this reactor on a forum post and called the west coast store which was selling it for half the cost of a Arid reactor and they shipped it to me. I was so pleased when I received it. Quality is outstanding. I'll take a pic in a few weeks when I harvest.
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I took my skimmer and gfo reactor offline and purchased a chaeto reactor to combat nitrates and phosphates. After a week, I'm thrilled with how my tank is responding! Water is crystal clear, nitrates are around 5 and phosphate zero. No need to wipe the glass or pumps or? everything is algae free. Even the brown algae is gone....All sps polyps are extended and happy......thrilled! I have been feeding heavy so I can still measure nitrates, which feels weird since I used to worry about fouling the tank. I found this reactor on a forum post and called the west coast store which was selling it for half the cost of a Arid reactor and they shipped it to me. I was so pleased when I received it. Quality is outstanding. I'll take a pic in a few weeks when I harvest.
View attachment 22225