Moonshiners or Reef Blueprint

[Brianbo]

I've been scrolling through the inter web looking for some information. I am currently running AFR on my tank and have no real problems. I am looking to start dosing more trace elements. My LFS is running the moonshiners method and is having great success, the only down side for me I see is having to dose every day, I'm a firefighter and there is times that I am gone for 48hrs and dont have the ability to dose. Thats where I came across Reef blueprint, they seem to be basically the same method but they have the ability of mixing everything together and using a doser. Which for me would work better. Anyone have any experience with both methods. Would greatly appreciate it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What trace elements do you think are worth dosing that are not in AFR or Tropic Marin A and K?

IMO, moonshine and some others promote certain trace
Elements with no known need in any organism.

 

[Brianbo]

I'm not 100% sure, I just noticed my corals don't color up and grow, all my acros turned green, I just ordered a icp test from ati, going to test the water and see where it sits. Was just looking into different options, seeing how my lfs has good success with the ms.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My only complaint with it is the pushing of what I consider to be some useless elements, and cost, but it doesn’t hurt anything to use it. :)

 

[Clowning_Around72]

I feel like a lot of us overcomplicate trace elements. Usually if you do an occasional water change (even if its a very small volume of water) and dose one of those bottled trace element bottles occasionally, you are usually fine.

I knew a guy who dosed seachem flourish (made with freshwater planted tanks in mind) and had decent trace element readings.

Although I think I will keep that for my planted tanks personally.

 

[ReneReef]

I'm not 100% sure, I just noticed my corals don't color up and grow, all my acros turned green, I just ordered a icp test from ati, going to test the water and see where it sits. Was just looking into different options, seeing how my lfs has good success with the ms.

This sounds to be much more likely a lighting issue than a trace element issue.

 

[Brianbo]

This sounds to be much more likely a lighting issue than a trace element issue

 

[Brianbo]

Im running radion g5 blues, 10hrs a day using the ab+ settings

 

[ReneReef]

Im running radion g5 blues, 10hrs a day using the ab+ settings

Oké. We’ll need much more info, than this to say anything useful.

Your tank size. Size of the radions xr15 or xr30. The number of radions. Peak intensity. Time at peak intensity. What you mean by 10 hrs a day (total light cycle or peak hours).

 

[Brianbo]

Oké. We’ll need much more info, than this to say anything useful.

Your tank size. Size of the radions xr15 or xr30. The number of radions. Peak intensity. Time at peak intensity. What you mean by 10 hrs a day (total light cycle or peak hours).

Wow ok, my bad I'm not a know it all reefer like most of you, hence why I'm here asking questions, My tank is a 90, with 2 xr15s, they turn on at 10am and off around 830 peek at 11-7

 

[ReneReef]

That explains your acros “turning green”/“corals not coloring up”.
Too little light.

Aim for total light cycle of about 12 hours with a high intensity peak of 6-7 hours of up to double the current peak intensity. In the morning and evening a few hours of low light (enough for viewing).

Wow ok, my bad I'm not a know it all reefer like most of you, hence why I'm here asking questions,

I’ll stop bothering you any further.
Good luck with the tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm not 100% sure, I just noticed my corals don't color up and grow, all my acros turned green, I just ordered a icp test from ati, going to test the water and see where it sits. Was just looking into different options, seeing how my lfs has good success with the ms.

It's a fine experiment to try out trace element dosing and see what happens, but before I went the full bore route of lots of different customized elements and testing, I'd just try some Tropic Marin A and K and see if anything beneficial happens.

 

[Brianbo]

It's a fine experiment to try out trace element dosing and see what happens, but before I went the full bore route of lots of different customized elements and testing, I'd just try some Tropic Marin A and K and see if anything beneficial happens.

Thanks, I will give that a look, appreciate the info

 

[Dave-T]

FWIW, I used moonshiners for a couple years and have been using captiv8 for the past year and a half. I switched for the reason you said - you can mix a cocktail of most of the captiv8 elements and dose with a doser. I was actually dosing many of the moonshine elements on dosers as well, but captiv8 is much easier. Another difference is that the target concentrations recommended by captiv8 are natural seawater levels. Moonshine has you elevate many elements for reasons that seem mostly anecdotal.

 

[Brianbo]

j

FWIW, I used moonshiners for a couple years and have been using captiv8 for the past year and a half. I switched for the reason you said - you can mix a cocktail of most of the captiv8 elements and dose with a doser. I was actually dosing many of the moonshine elements on dosers as well, but captiv8 is much easier. Another difference is that the target concentrations recommended by captiv8 are natural seawater levels. Moonshine has you elevate many elements for reasons that seem mostly anecdotal.

Thanks for the info, It looks promising, I am just waiting to get my ICP test back.

 

[Dave-T]

I use Oceamo MS. Not the quickest or the cheapest, but it seems to be the best.

 

[GuppyHJD]

Two LFS near me are using Captiv8 Reef Blueprint. I have been using Reef Blueprint for 18 months. I have read the Moonshiners manual a few times. I think both systems are using some elements that have not been proven to help the corals but also not proven to hurt them.

With Reef Blueprint I would recommend contacting Captiv8 - the owner is very helpful. I use 3 dosers because not all the elements can be mixed. Most go in a Master Solution and 2-3 can't - like Strontium.

I would also look into Chris Meckley's YouTube videos.

Good luck whichever direction you go and post back with updates.

 

[IPT]

I have SPS and run between 250-500 PAR throughout my tank depending on placement and time of the day). I routinely do 10-15% WC weekly using IO regular. Still, my ICP tests revealed some low trace elements and Randy recommended Tropic Marin A and K (I don't recall exactly what was low). Within days I saw my blues and purples pop like never before.

The benefits of dosing trace elements to me were very clear. However, dosing A and K and not knowing the exact dosages of what they had IMO left me at risk for some elements being consumed faster than others, or said another way, may not have covered all the bases if my tank consumed elements in a different ratio than the A and K provided. If I was conservative and I dosed for the lowest element consumed I could essentially be under dosing something else. I guess I could have just continued with the A and K and just bought the traces elements that I found lagging and dosed them up to speed in addition to the A and K. Though it still left the issue of determining how much to raise the A and K not knowing exactly what I was dosing,

In hindsight, I'd have to do a cost analysis to see if that made sense. I was dosing A and K off the cuff really (about 5-10 Ml a day I think) and wanted something more objective. I also liked that Captiv8 can essentially all be mixed together for one (or at most 2) dosing cocktails (master dosing solution he calls it). I considered Reef Moonshines but needing to daily dose and having to do it all separately was a no go for me.

My master dosing solution is mixed for 40 days and I dose a precise amount daily (30mls I think) with all the trace elements combined based on ICP testing and consumption. He provides a spreadsheet where you enter your ICP values, your last dosing amounts and it re-calculates the new "Master dosing solution". Chris in general was very helpful. That said his analysis and spreadsheet are very robust and informative and I found I had a lot of questions. I wish there was a forum because after a while he wasn't really responding to my questions in a timely manner. To be fair to him, in hindsight the information I needed was there, I just was overwhelmed in trying to find it all and be confident I had it right,

All of that said, I just started 3 months ago and got off to rough start. I didn't have everything I needed to create the master dosing at the values recommended, I ran out of A and K (and didn;t want to buy more since I was moving away from it) so I didn't taper like I wanted to (and should have), and my IC test coincided with holidays and massively delayed my getting the results (required to determine the new master dosing solution - lesson learned and now I prep a 40 day master solution and test at 30 days. I also bought the Isol8 MT which is guesstimated blend I guess that can suffice in filling a gap in dosing your master solution)

In a way these bumps and gaps inversely validated what I originally saw. I know I was under dosing (having not had enough time or testing the compensate for stopping the A and K) and in rather short order I saw loss of color in my SPS. Particularly the blue and purple I gained after starting the A and K. I guess the real test will be down the road seeing if the Captiv8 dosing restores that blue and purple coloration and hopefully even surpasses it by popping other colors the A and K did not.

Sorry for being so long winded but I felt compelled to share what I have seen and experienced so far on my journey. Good luck on yours.

Speaking of the journey, it sounds like you may be rather new at this. If so, most likely getting stability in the big 3, your lighting and nutrients in order would be the best place start. Then consider the trace elements. The A and K did wonders for my tank (but it was well established and stable with good growth). It remains to be seen in the Captiv8 / ReefBlue print will equal and surpass it regarding my colors.

 

[IPT]

My tank is a 90, with 2 xr15s, they turn on at 10am and off around 830 peek at 11-7

I agree this probably isn't enough light. On my standard 120 I have an XR-15 G6 Pro, 2 Kessil 360x's, a 12 inch blade, and (4) 48 inch T-5s. For about 4 hours mid day I have everyone of these at 100% output.

 

[IPT]

With Reef Blueprint I would recommend contacting Captiv8 - the owner is very helpful. I use 3 dosers because not all the elements can be mixed. Most go in a Master Solution and 2-3 can't - like Strontium.

I would also look into Chris Meckley's YouTube videos.

Good luck whichever direction you go and post back with updates.

This is true to a point. I contacted Chris about that because I mixed the Strontium in and was worried about it. He said in fact it can at times be mixed in but it all depends of the amount of other elements that can cause it to precipitate and overall volume of water. That said, yes, 2 dosing solutions is probably the way to go (and the way I will do it from now on).