Hey guys, I figured I would post my experience over the last 1.5-2 months of switching to ATI essentials. I keep spreadsheets of almost everything I do so I figured I would share that with you guys for feedback and to provide help to newer people that are interested in getting started.
Real quick, here are the specs of my tank. I can provide more info on request:
Red Sea Reefer 350 (91 gal) Mixed reef SPS, LPS, Anemone
ATI 8 bulb fixture + 1 reefbrite strip
1 Gyre Xf250 running at 30-60% throughout the day and 1 MP40 running at 50% pulsing throughout the day
My inhabitants are:
2 Clowns
2 Chromis
1 Yellow eye Tang
1 Coral Beauty(in the sump about to move him)
Bubble algae
In my spreadsheet, I am only posting the dates from where I started ATI essentials. Before that, I was having fluctuations all over the place as this tank was kind of new. I upgraded my 17 gallon to this so there was a bit of a cycle. So due to that, there has been some awkward balancing act going on due to my calcium was so high as I started the dosing. ATI essentials recommends you dose the same amount for all 3 parts. I believe my scenario made sense to break this rule, hopefully they'll see this post and let me know what they think.
- If the box is blank it's because I didn't run that test on that day.
- Notes are what I've done after performing the test that day
- When I increase and decrease dosing, it's over a 24 hour period
My observations over the last couple months:
- So you can see here at 12/7 to 12/16 I had an alk swing. This doesn't seem like a big difference, but it wrecked a couple of my SPS. JF Fox Flame is the one that got hit the hardest. Now this could have been due to that frag was not as healthy as I thought to begin with. It's pretty low in my tank and possibly wasn't getting the light it needed. Or it could also be my nitrates are at 25 which is a little high for SPS. I'm trying to figure out how to lower it without doing a water change.
- Another thing to consider is that I dosed more nitrates right before this swing, this could have provided much more food to the corals which in turn consumed more Alk. Also, not noted, but I was feeding heavily during this time. I've cut that back a bit, but it's hard to explain how much is a lot or not because it's all relative. You have to figure out the sweet spot for feeding yourself in my opinion. Whatever it was, the key here is to not go a week without testing alkalinity like I did.
This is my current dosing schedule:
- I'm about to spread it out more so that I'm not dumping in so much at one time.
Conclusion:
I just ordered an ATI lab test so I'll report back with my numbers when I get that done. However, so far I'm really happy with ATI essentials. I am really happy not doing water changes. My tank is really happy from what I can tell. I'm getting really good growth on some SPS and LPS corals. It honestly feels like it's starting to pick up momentum as well. For example, I am noticing much more growth than I did a couple weeks ago. That is probably due to the stability that I have achieved in the last couple weeks too though.
Here is a picture of the tank:
Real quick, here are the specs of my tank. I can provide more info on request:
Red Sea Reefer 350 (91 gal) Mixed reef SPS, LPS, Anemone
ATI 8 bulb fixture + 1 reefbrite strip
1 Gyre Xf250 running at 30-60% throughout the day and 1 MP40 running at 50% pulsing throughout the day
My inhabitants are:
2 Clowns
2 Chromis
1 Yellow eye Tang
1 Coral Beauty(in the sump about to move him)
Bubble algae
In my spreadsheet, I am only posting the dates from where I started ATI essentials. Before that, I was having fluctuations all over the place as this tank was kind of new. I upgraded my 17 gallon to this so there was a bit of a cycle. So due to that, there has been some awkward balancing act going on due to my calcium was so high as I started the dosing. ATI essentials recommends you dose the same amount for all 3 parts. I believe my scenario made sense to break this rule, hopefully they'll see this post and let me know what they think.
- If the box is blank it's because I didn't run that test on that day.
- Notes are what I've done after performing the test that day
- When I increase and decrease dosing, it's over a 24 hour period
My observations over the last couple months:
- So you can see here at 12/7 to 12/16 I had an alk swing. This doesn't seem like a big difference, but it wrecked a couple of my SPS. JF Fox Flame is the one that got hit the hardest. Now this could have been due to that frag was not as healthy as I thought to begin with. It's pretty low in my tank and possibly wasn't getting the light it needed. Or it could also be my nitrates are at 25 which is a little high for SPS. I'm trying to figure out how to lower it without doing a water change.
- Another thing to consider is that I dosed more nitrates right before this swing, this could have provided much more food to the corals which in turn consumed more Alk. Also, not noted, but I was feeding heavily during this time. I've cut that back a bit, but it's hard to explain how much is a lot or not because it's all relative. You have to figure out the sweet spot for feeding yourself in my opinion. Whatever it was, the key here is to not go a week without testing alkalinity like I did.
This is my current dosing schedule:
- I'm about to spread it out more so that I'm not dumping in so much at one time.
Conclusion:
I just ordered an ATI lab test so I'll report back with my numbers when I get that done. However, so far I'm really happy with ATI essentials. I am really happy not doing water changes. My tank is really happy from what I can tell. I'm getting really good growth on some SPS and LPS corals. It honestly feels like it's starting to pick up momentum as well. For example, I am noticing much more growth than I did a couple weeks ago. That is probably due to the stability that I have achieved in the last couple weeks too though.
Here is a picture of the tank:
