Over brightwells products, I might have to disagree with you on that one.Fish and fish foods are certainly not cheaper (except perhaps petco specials), but they might be "easier" and might be more fun.
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Over brightwells products, I might have to disagree with you on that one.Fish and fish foods are certainly not cheaper (except perhaps petco specials), but they might be "easier" and might be more fun.
If you feed more, with or without adding fish, that would be called increasing bioload, and one effect of increased bioload is increased nitrate and phosphate.
Since that may be the only effect you want, dosing those exact things is a good plan, and isn't called increasing bioload.
Food grade sodium nitrate and phosphate are the topics of dozens of threads here. They can be obtained from amazon for far less than the Brightwell products, and should not in any way be considered second rate. if anything, I'd use them over Brightwell even if they cost more since they are of known purity and the Brightwell products are not.
Examples:
One last question, should I remove my filter sock and turn off skimmer until I bring the levels up ?
I was going to bring up how corals prefer ammonia over residual N&P, but figured it was an advanced topic, and might be over the Op's head right now.Randy's suggestions are spot on. I personally use Triton because I'm too busy (lazy) to mix up my own solutions and I trust the Triton purity. Plus, I also dose the Triton NH Alpha product which is ammonia dosing (I don't recommend that at all when you're starting out).
If cost is of concern, then dosing with products Randy suggested is really going to be you're go to, to get things balanced.
As for adding fish, I would look at that as a long term solution (and a natural constant low dose ammonia production which corals like).
I was going to bring up how corals prefer ammonia over residual N&P, but figured it was an advanced topic, and might be over the Op's head right now.
Kind of why I suggested just adding more fish.
Thanks a bunch Randy learned lots today...."Lab Grade" is not really a useful designation. It can mean anything.
Good grades are USP (pharma), FCC (food) WCC (water supply grade), or ACS Reagent grade.
The nitrate one is good.