My experience with acro growth

[alindell]

The last couple months I've been focusing on carbon dosing, adding aminos, feeding full frozen not filtering, adding flatworm stop and increasing ph. This is anecdotal, but I have noticed some positive benefits. First off most of the corals seem happy and acro death seems to be down. There's always one or two that kick the bucket randomly. I've noticed daytime polyp extension as before it was only at night. Some acro growth has taken off and a couple of my monti's seem to have grown even faster. Algae has mostly gone away. I would say these actions seem to yield some positive benefits combined.

Also I've noticed that cutting this yellow yellow pink Floyd acro has increased its growth rapidly. It took forever to take off and now after cutting it within a couple months it's basically regenerated what was cut.

Also my zoa garden seems to be looking better. They were looking rough for awhile. I just let them go and they have seemed to settle in. I do believe they are getting too much light but can't have a perfect tank

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

Looks great! Keep an eye on iodine lvls using flatworm stop. It supposedly raises iodine rapidly

 

[SpartaReef]

How are you adding aminos?

 

[alindell]

How are you adding aminos?

Acro power. Before I was using reef plus. I just started using aminos daily and before it was sparingly. I think the bacto balance, heavy feeding, and higher flow has helped the most. I also just started dosing tropic marine a and K also too because ICP shows those most trace elements undetectable. I'm kinda experimenting with some things. I'll probably pull an icp test in a month or so to see what's going on. Also one thing to note another change I did was basically pull all my brightwell bio bricks as I had high aluminum. Maybe that helped too

 

[braaap]

Looks great! Keep an eye on iodine lvls using flatworm stop. It supposedly raises iodine rapidly

I don’t think there is a time where iodine is too high. I’m about to send mine out for an ICP but I’m guessing mine is off the charts. I do 3 drops a day in a 55gal system of MECoral iodine. Soon as I started that I started to see massive growth and zero death.

 

[alindell]

Looks great! Keep an eye on iodine lvls using flatworm stop. It supposedly raises iodine rapidly

I have heard I'll have to do another ICP test in a month to know for sure. I had montipora eating nudibranches and nothing was working to kill them. Someone told me using flatworm stop helps so I've been using that. While they are not completely gone I have noticed a dramatic change in populations. I think it helps but it's hard to tell. I also have 3 wrasse melanarus, coris and leopard hunting all day. I have like 10 peppermints, two skunk shrimp, angelfish and spotted mandarin so I have an army to keep them at bay.

 

[SpartaReef]

So how often do you water change? And how many gallons is your tank? I'm running a 40 breeder, and I do a 5 gallon water change, weekly, and I only dose calcium, magnesium, and alk 1x weekly. Wondering if i should add trace elements and or increase dosing

 

[alindell]

So how often do you water change? And how many gallons is your tank? I'm running a 40 breeder, and I do a 5 gallon water change, weekly, and I only dose calcium, magnesium, and alk 1x weekly. Wondering if i should add trace elements and or increase dosing

It's about a gallon a day on a 150 gallon tank. I use all for reef but because the tank is not solely run on all reef and water changes are not enough alone I started adding them in with a nd K. I'm not quite at the reef moonshiners level as I'm not trying to dose a million elements everyday although recently I have been dosing a lot.

To be fair for about 2 years I wasn't really dosing anything manually and things were just fine. I have noticed increased polyp extension and growth though dosing the things I mentioned above. Also maybe none of the things I dose have little effect and just increasing feeding and flow made the big difference.

I do think dosing the bacto balance has really made a difference on algae and feeding corals though. My suspicion is phosphate and nitrates lowered to a stable level and bacteria populations increased covering surface area of rock work. Along with Coraline algae and bacteria keeping things stable the algae has no place to propagate and not enough nutrients to be fueled. Also maybe increasing the bacteria levels which is what acros predominantly feed on increased polyp extension. Idk just a guess.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Acro power. Before I was using reef plus. I just started using aminos daily and before it was sparingly. I think the bacto balance, heavy feeding, and higher flow has helped the most. I also just started dosing tropic marine an and K also too because ICP shows those most trace elements undetectable. I'm kinda experimenting with some things. I'll probably pull an icp test in a month or so to see what's going on. Also one thing to note another change I did was basically pull all my brightwell bio bricks as I had high aluminum. Maybe that helped too

I ran flat stop for a long while. Then I stopped. Zero change noticed one way or the other. I also dose acropower. 14 mil at midnight into 525g. I just did that new Oceamo ICP. I’ve been doing acropower for a couple years. I missed 5 days of dosing prior to the water sample. I’m curious how this turns out. Again. I didn’t notice anything in those 5 days. But, I think it would take about a month to notice, if at all. But for $125 and it last me about 275 days on my dos, depending on this test, I doubt I make a change though.

I also dose iodine, Lugols. But unlike @braaap I put 2 drops daily in. He for sure is on the high end compared to me. And to think, I thought I was living on the wild side with the “extra” drop.

 

[alindell]

I ran flat stop for a long while. Then I stopped. Zero change noticed one way or the other. I also dose acropower. 14 mil at midnight into 525g. I just did that new Oceamo ICP. I’ve been doing acropower for a couple years. I missed 5 days of dosing prior to the water sample. I’m curious how this turns out. Again. I didn’t notice anything in those 5 days. But, I think it would take about a month to notice, if at all. But for $125 and it last me about 275 days on my dos, depending on this test, I doubt I make a change though.

I also dose iodine, Lugols. But unlike @braaap I put 2 drops daily in. He for sure is on the high end compared to me. And to think, I thought I was living on the wild side with the “extra” drop.

I stopped dosing potassium iodine. I was doing like a capful every few days. ICP showed way too high of iodine.

 

[alindell]

Honestly with corals it's one big experiment. I have no idea how much of what is really doing anything.

 

[UMALUM]

I have heard I'll have to do another ICP test in a month to know for sure. I had montipora eating nudibranches and nothing was working to kill them. Someone told me using flatworm stop helps so I've been using that. While they are not completely gone I have noticed a dramatic change in populations. I think it helps but it's hard to tell. I also have 3 wrasse melanarus, coris and leopard hunting all day. I have like 10 peppermints, two skunk shrimp, angelfish and spotted mandarin so I have an army to keep them at bay.

After 45 days of stop following a traditional 10% weekly change.



A handful of springeri will take care of the mens along with anything else that will fit in their months.

 

[alindell]

After 45 days of stop following a traditional 10% weekly change.



A handful of springeri will take care of the mens along with anything else that will fit in their months.

I can't add any more fish... Especially aggressive damsels

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Honestly with corals it's one big experiment. I have no idea how much of what is really doing anything.

Totally agree. There is one thing my system responds to, water changes and or no water changes. That and when my co2 tanks runs out.

 

[EricLille]

As I have EAFW currently, i thought using flatworm stop KZ as a preventive solution. Are you sûre this product is just Iodine? In that case it’s not for me. And what about coral booster ? Is it amino acid ?