3- this goes along with 1 but dosing the right stuff. I have seen and found that any two part dosing method works. I personally use seachem fusion two part because the calcium is laced with magnesium and I don’t have to dose magnesium with this two part system which lets me free up an extra dosing pump. So use what works for u in regards to two part because I don’t think it really matters?
I dose acropower on the regular as well as koralin zucht coral booster. I highly recommend both of these products
4-a mix of different miracle mud/Julian sprung refugium sand in your refugium. People say it’s snake oil, it’s not imo. When I put new mud in my refugium I see noticeable increased polyp extension in my acros.
5- maintain a robust and I mean robust clean up crew always. I always see people complaining about algae problems and ways to get rid of it. When people ask me what they are doing wrong the first thing I ask them is what type of cuc they have. I personally have 80 Florida ceriths, around 200 plus dwarf ceriths, 60ish nessarius, 20 plus trochus, 40 plus of this other one I can’t remeber the name of, 20 turbos, two urchins, 60ish hermits, four tangs, a starry blenny, 4 serpent starfish etc etc etc. i also have thousands of reproducing limpets. people always wanna blame algae problems on high nutrients. Well coming from a guy with the highest nutrients u have ever heard of (greater than 64 ppm nitrate and over 1 phos) it’s not a nutrient problem. U probably bought a dismal cuc in the beginning and u never reupped on snails and crabs because let’s face it spending 100 bucks on snails and crabs isn’t as exciting as spending the same amount on corals or fish. So up that cuc if u have problems with algae.
6-adding and exporting nutrients. Sometimes I feel like my fish are fed sooo much and are sooo fat that they are borderline about to develop type two diabetes. But my tank lives with ich and that’s how I keep these spoiled brats healthy. I have a naso tang that could feed a family of 8 when the zombie apocalypse rolls around so fear not guys I got u! Haha in all seriousness we shouldn’t be starving our fish or our corals and inverts. I feed everyone everything a good mix of whatever is in the freezer at tank it easy. I buy a packet of each thing and mix it all up. I dont dose nitrates, I think that’s super dumb, I just feed feed feed. I have a great skimmer and I feel like that’s crucial to exporting all the shit I dump in there daily. My skimmer is off 8 hours a day and during this 8 hours I dose 4 ml of Red Sea no pox which acts as a carbon source for denytrifying bacteria that live IN THE WATER COLUMN not in the rocks. These bacteria eat nitrate, increase in population, use nopox for their carbon source and the following morning my skimmer turns back on and skims all these bacteria out of the water column. It is VERY important to run a microbubbles if you are going to do it like this. These dentrifying bacteria are considered aerobic bacteria and will deplete the water column of oxygen if you don’t have a skimmer running or microbubbles bubbling. Therefore u need one or the other. I don’t like running the skimmer when I dose nopox because it Skim’s out the bacteria before u get a chance to have the benefits of the bacterial population growth. Therefore my microbubbles run 8 hours at night when my skimmer is off and turn off when the skimmer turns back on and therefore I don’t see microbubbles in the dt during the day.
7- waterchanges. I don’t really do these like other people. If I see some cyano in the corner or somthing I’ll syphon it out and replace with fresh water. But the most I’m changing is about ten gallons once maybe twice a month when I see sand that doesn’t tickle my fancy in low flow areas.
8- flow. You don’t have enough. Get more of it.
9- deep clean. Once a month I deep clean my tank. This means I place filter socks in for 24 hours and turn the microbubbles on in the tank. Once the bubbles are bubbling I take a turkey badger and blast the shit out of all my rock and corals. The detritus goes up into the water column attaches to the bubbles goes into my overflow and fills up my socks. After about 30 minutes of blasting every book and cranny my three socks are filled up and overflowing. I then remove the socks and keep the bubbles running for the remainder of the 24 hours and the skimmer sucks up the rest. The following day I siphon out the skimmer section and blow off the macro in the refugium.
Hope that helps!!
Ry
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk