Am I Adding to Much Additives??

[Coral Newbie]

Hey all I’m still new to saltwater and was looking for some advice on additives.

I currently have a Redsea Max E-170 and I feel like I’m adding a tone to the tank that I’m worried it too much. Here’s a list of what I’m adding and what other items I have but not currently using.

I’m using the RedSea Mix Reef Recipe which includes all of the standard
1) Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium, and the additional trace elements
2) The NO3-PO4-X Algae Management kit. (However I can’t seem to get the NO3 to drop even with weekly water changes and this product)
3) Coral Nutrition bottles A & B

I also have the following additives that I am not using yet because I’m not sure if any of the items I have above are the same thing. Should I be using this products as well?
1) Phyto-Feast
2) Oyster-Feast

My tank is my avatar pic.

Any help would be awesome!!! Thanks!!

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

) Phyto-Feast
2) Oyster-Feast

This is just food.

1) Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium,

The big 3 you need for stony corals.

and the additional trace elements

Undecided if we really need them, they should be in the salt

2) The NO3O4-X Algae Management kit.

Not familiar, nutrient control, your choice kinda. I dont use any of that.

Coral Nutrition bottles A & B

More foods.

 

[Keepswiming]

You know that old saying K.I.S.S, do that. I would recommended only dosing your big three Ca, Alk, and Mg. Trace elements are just that, trace, and are replenished with biweekly water changes.

As for your nitrate issue, how long was your rock cured and/or tank setup?
What are your actual numbers?

I dose the big 3, have a skimmer and do biweekly water changes of about 25%. The rest is all spending money to support additive companies. Plus, if your adding so much, it's going to be hard to trace a problem. Good luck

 

[mcarroll]

I currently have a Redsea Max E-170 and I feel like I’m adding a tone to the tank that I’m worried it too much.

Listen to your gut!!!

I’m using the RedSea Mix Reef Recipe which includes all of the standard
1) Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium, and the additional trace elements
2) The NO3-PO4-X Algae Management kit. (However I can’t seem to get the NO3 to drop even with weekly water changes and this product)
3) Coral Nutrition bottles A & B

Hopefully you can see the strike-throughs I made above. (if not, dose for ca, alk and mg and dump the rest.)

How is your tank doing? Is the high NO3 test number the only symptom?

Can you post the rest of your test results?

 

[Carlos Danger]

Big three for sure. Other traces depend. Potassium is one of those that might require attention with a little less emphasis on Iron. I think it depends on how much SPS vs. LPS etc.

 

[1stNoel]

Hey all I’m still new to saltwater and was looking for some advice on additives.

I currently have a Redsea Max E-170 and I feel like I’m adding a tone to the tank that I’m worried it too much. Here’s a list of what I’m adding and what other items I have but not currently using.

I’m using the RedSea Mix Reef Recipe which includes all of the standard
1) Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium, and the additional trace elements
2) The NO3-PO4-X Algae Management kit. (However I can’t seem to get the NO3 to drop even with weekly water changes and this product)
3) Coral Nutrition bottles A & B

I also have the following additives that I am not using yet because I’m not sure if any of the items I have above are the same thing. Should I be using this products as well?
1) Phyto-Feast
2) Oyster-Feast

My tank is my avatar pic.

Any help would be awesome!!! Thanks!!

I basically feed the exact same thing.

I dose Red Sea Reef Energy and Reef Colors.
Use ESV B-Ionic for Ca, Mg, and KH.
Make a concoction of food using LRS Fish Frenzy, PE Mysis, Reef Chili, AngelElixir, and other vitamins.
I keep my NO around 1 and PO below .03 using NOPOX and Phosphate-E (when necessary).

Although my corals are healthy and growing, I don't get the polyp extension I'd like to see. I don't know if the culprit was a juvenile queen angel that I recently had to remove because she was devouring some corals (I thought she would only nip at worst), or the fact that I don't do water changes (always had issues with KH swings when I first tried doing them, then found stability just dosing trace elements so I stayed with it).

I recently started adding Reef Nutrition PhytoFeast, RotiFeast, and OysterFeast to my daily feeding. I now notice polyp extension I had never seen before.

As you can see, I spoil my corals...experimenting to see what they like best. But at some point I will look to cut costs by re-introducing water changes to my routine, adding chaeto to my sump, and limiting the amount of products I use.

To answer your question on NOPOX, it takes about 2 weeks for it to take effect...but it does work.

 

[Coral Newbie]

Listen to your gut!!!



Hopefully you can see the strike-throughs I made above. (if not, dose for ca, alk and mg and dump the rest.)

How is your tank doing? Is the high NO3 test number the only symptom?

Can you post the rest of your test results?

Mcarroll - Sorry for getting back so late. Test Results
Calcium - 450
Alkalinity - 11.6
Magnesium - 1360
Nitrates - 4ish
Phosphates - 0.16

 

[Coral Newbie]

I basically feed the exact same thing.

I dose Red Sea Reef Energy and Reef Colors.
Use ESV B-Ionic for Ca, Mg, and KH.
Make a concoction of food using LRS Fish Frenzy, PE Mysis, Reef Chili, AngelElixir, and other vitamins.
I keep my NO around 1 and PO below .03 using NOPOX and Phosphate-E (when necessary).

Although my corals are healthy and growing, I don't get the polyp extension I'd like to see. I don't know if the culprit was a juvenile queen angel that I recently had to remove because she was devouring some corals (I thought she would only nip at worst), or the fact that I don't do water changes (always had issues with KH swings when I first tried doing them, then found stability just dosing trace elements so I stayed with it).

I recently started adding Reef Nutrition PhytoFeast, RotiFeast, and OysterFeast to my daily feeding. I now notice polyp extension I had never seen before.

As you can see, I spoil my corals...experimenting to see what they like best. But at some point I will look to cut costs by re-introducing water changes to my routine, adding chaeto to my sump, and limiting the amount of products I use.

To answer your question on NOPOX, it takes about 2 weeks for it to take effect...but it does work.

1stNoel - Thanks for the help. Sorry i'm getting back to you so late. Had the weekend WWC sale and spaced on response's. I'm running
Nitrates - 4ish
Phosphates - 0.16
and dose NOPOX 4ml every morning and not seem to be getting anything to drop. I'm following RedSea new "Mixed Reef Recipe" but i'm thinking my amount of fish might be the issue on why I can't get it lower. I seem to be holding at 4ish ppm but I can't get it to drop past that. I have 2 clowns, flame, spotted mandarin, watchmen gobbie, blue trigger, royal gamma, and 6 line wrasse and I have a 45gal tank.

I have PhytoFeast and OysterFeast that I haven't been using because I'm worried Ill shoot my Nitrates and Phosphates up.

 

[mcarroll]

Nitrates - 4ish
Phosphates - 0.16

Stop worrying – those numbers are fine. Once a decent supply of NO3 is consistently available you might just see that PO4 drop some.

And stop the carbon dosing, GFO, and any other nutrient-tweaking you might be doing. Just feed the tank.

When you make feeding changes, make them small and monitor your NO3 and PO4 for at least a month to see if there's any net-effect.

I will say that you have a pretty large collection of bigger-sized fish for a ~40 gallon tank, so you need to moderate your expectation for "low nutrients". Those fish all need to be fed and all that food ends up one place.

Corals are going to boom more than likely – are you sure you want a Xenia/GSP tank?

I see some SPS in there, so that tells me there could be some indecision on the coral front? Now is definitely the time to decide.