Amino Acids: Are They Worth It?

[1Meshy]

My hammers have lost their gold and orange colors. Once the bottle of acropower arrives, I will return to this thread and give an update a few weeks after usage.
A friend recommended this, so I shall see.
Love the post, has me hopeful I can get my colors back.

Yes, post updates! I'm deciding whether I should buy another bottle of Brightwell's AA, or try AcroPower instead so your progress would come in handy too :)

 

[1Meshy]

My tank was looking OK not a ton of growth and some nems hiding in dark. After dosing AB + daily all nems are out and extending / all corals are fluffy and open. Now I’m an advocate went a whole year without dosing aminos due to scare of Dino’s. Not sure if related but after dosing my phosphate levels zeroed out so I have to dose phosphate now, nitrate around 25-40

Nice. I haven't seen much of a difference with the AB+ yet, but I'm hopeful I'll see something different in the coming weeks

 

[fuelman]

i have been using acropower, currently dosing 15ml every other day in my 180, thinking about putting it on a auto dose. my torches started showing noticeable color improvement after 3-4 weeks of use. i think it works well & the coral seem to like it. i haven't tried any other amino's just the acropower.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

Alright, I guess I can do 6 drops of the CoralAmino every Monday and Friday then.. Have you ever user acropower by any chance?

no but i got positive feedback on it from customers. i’m using a similar product called Reef Plus by seachem.

 

[rusgum]

Hey y'all, so I was adding Brightwell's CoralAmino for about a year and my corals absolutely loved it. I was dosing everyday at the time (about 12 drops everyday for a 29 biocube) but then lowered the dosage to only twice a week because I was getting a ton of algae on my rocks (this was about 3 or 4 months ago). Even with the lower dosage, I continued to get algae and it would get worse whenever I would dose.

Now I have changed my aquascape and have no more algae on the rocks (yay!), but whenever I dose, I start growing algae again and have to scrub the rocks a bit. I've since stopped dosing because I'm worried my new aquascape will get covered in algae too quickly.

So my question is this: should I continue to dose CoralAmino but just lower the dose significantly, or should I stop altogether and try something else? I've heard of AcroPower being a good amino acid supplement, but I haven't tried it yet. I'll also mention that I feed the corals reef roids every Thursday, and have recently picked up on trying out Reef Energy AB+ Plus (been dosing about 4mL everyday for a few days now).

I'm just looking to see what types of supplements and/or foods are out there that would help the corals grow and color up nicely without giving me *too* many algae issues. :)

I currently have two hammer corals, frogspawn, a few zoas and GSP, and some montipora digitata and birdsnest.

Just in case you want my parameters:

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - between 5 and 10ppm
Alkalinity - 9.8 dKH
Calcium - 450ppm
Magnesium - 1450ppm
Phosphate - 0.07ppm

Amino acids are justified and you can see the result visually if you have a low permeability of nutrients (meaning nitrogenous) due to a small number of fish, low feeding or strong filtration. When using amino acids (unless it is a complex supplement), phosphate levels should be well controlled. I would use amino acids in a well-planted reef, otherwise the amino acids will go to those we don't want to see

 

[Goaway]

Bad pictures and it's been a month almost.
I can see some slight color change, but is it worth dosing still?
Old photos a month ago. This is all taken under the same lighting. I have moved the frags to give more growing room. They were pretty clustered together. Not good.
So, the top pic is an unknown color with a gold hammer in the middle and the same unknown color below it. In the back is just a normal green tip hammer.
I will say, the stems have gained a lot of color to where the transparency is gone.
Now my peachy orange arrived after 2 days of being stuck with fedex. So, is it only peachy orange with a filter? Or did it lose color from shipping? It was faded green upon arrival and now a peachy teal color which is difficult to get on camera.


hammers as of today.


Unknown color with gold tip hammer on the right. Perhaps it helped the gold torch out much. A lot of the green hue has left. Stems are also darkening in color.


Now I don't have any color sticks to test the amino acids with. I do have a green slimer. It has shown growth with in the couple of weeks of owning it. Sadly I was not expecting that at all. Usually I see growth starting in a month or so.
Here it is from arrival to right now.

a few days after arrival.


And now



Basicially it is continuing to encrust on the frag plug.

Or, are green slimers quick adapters to new environments? I ask as I have a birdsnest and a monti cap that did not begin growth until a month later.

And water parameters for the last month.
sg = 1.026
calcium = 480
Alk = 8.5 - 8.8
Ph = 8.0 - 8.15
magnesium = 1480
nitrates = 10
Phosphates .1

Edit: I have seen minor color changes. Except with the gold hammer. It is the only hammer to really benefit from the acropower I am using. The others are gaining a richer coloration.
I will update next month if there is more development in color change.

 

[BTimms]

You could try mixing your own diy bcaa formula.
5g bcaa (unflavoured, no additives)
125 ml vinegar
375 ml ro water

 

[((FORDTECH))]

My hammers have lost their gold and orange colors. Once the bottle of acropower arrives, I will return to this thread and give an update a few weeks after usage.
A friend recommended this, so I shall see.
Love the post, has me hopeful I can get my colors back.

Any update on this ?

 

[Goaway]

Any update on this ?

Slightly above this. Colors slowly coming back. Will be buying lens tonight. Hope to get them by tuesday.

You could try mixing your own diy bcaa formula.
5g bcaa (unflavoured, no additives)
125 ml vinegar
375 ml ro water

after I use up my acropower.

 

[Topreefer92]

I had dosed acropower at a quarter of the dose once a week for a month. I noticed a difference but then the dinos came on 4 year old steady tank. Would love to have more acro growth.

 

[Goaway]

I had dosed acropower at a quarter of the dose once a week for a month. I noticed a difference but then the dinos came on 4 year old steady tank. Would love to have more acro growth.

I haven't had to deal with dinos yet. My old reef, I had to battle dinos often.

I did order a orphek lens kit. So, I hope it makes tracking growth and color easier. My hammers sprout 1 new head per month. I don't think it's going to get better than that.

 

[Topreefer92]

I haven't had to deal with dinos yet. My old reef, I had to battle dinos often.

I did order a orphek lens kit. So, I hope it makes tracking growth and color easier. My hammers sprout 1 new head per month. I don't think it's going to get better than that.

That is fantastic growth on your LPS!!!

 

[Goaway]

That is fantastic growth on your LPS!!!

Thank you for the compliment :) we started out with 1 head and have 9 on the largest hammer. They are not fully split though. They will be one year old in early November.

 

[Goaway]

I did want to do another update. For anyone who still cares about this topic.

Something which has changed dramatically in color, unsuspectingly. My Bubble tip anemone. Out of all my corals. My bta has show the very most dramatic color change since I received it. The person who sold it to me, did not edit the photos, and I was never expecting much from the bta to begin with. I am a bit shocked at the color change.

These are before and after photos of using acropower. I have been using acropower since July 26th. That's when my bottle arrived. I have had my bta since July 15th.
I had no phone camera lens when I took pictures of the bta. For the update I used no lens either.
July 15th.

The same day, only it went to hide under a rock.



This very after noon under the same lights. Sept. 8th no filter.


Orphek 20k lens only. This is pretty close to what I see, only the tips are much more lime-lemon like.


So, I can't argue that acropower doesn't work. It really did here.
There are probably better out there. I'll look into the diy version once my bottle is empty.
Hope this helps anyone wanting to know if it's worth it or not :)

 

[BTimms]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-amino-acid-formula.853767/