Just ordered my first batch and noticed that there's now a choice between version 4.3 and version 5 beta. What are the differences between the two versions?
@hunterallen40
Hey! Yeah, we have a new version that changes a few things. The main reason to change up was to support our new amino acid product, reef bull, in a way that it can be added directly to the two part (if one should be so inclined).
1. We now chelate the trace blend differently in an effort to make things more bio-available than previous versions. In short, we are EDTA free now. This is the biggest change.
2. We reduced the total amount of carbon by a lot, as the nutrient stripping in V4 is a bit too aggressive. V4.3 is still less than a starter dose of vinegar for large daily doses (in terms of total added carbon), but it's now barely present. We just saw too many folks struggling to keep up their nitrates / phosphates.
3. To support reef bull, we needed to buffer the pH of the calcium / magnesium part up a bit (instead of down like in V4.3) to ensure the added aminos don't just fall apart in the brine / fall out of solution. This was the toughest part to get right, but it has been pretty great so far.
Reef bull, for anyone curious, is a 2-part amino acid. Having it in two parts makes it significantly easier to stabilize, and allows you to add it straight to the two part if you are so inclined (HOWEVER: I HIGHLY suggest you dose it independently for a while so you understand the effect it has on your aquarium!!!).
We actually had some mud collected from the solomon islands to analyze for which aminos we chose, using the oceamo organo-MS testing. We had no idea where to start in developing an amino acid, so we just looked to get some real info from nature. We weren't expecting to see very much, but... we were very wrong :). This mud sample was collected very deep (~70 feet) near some solomon islands lokani (which we have struggled keeping historically), and we saw some very interesting things... The most notable spike was actually in Taurine (thus the name"Reef Bull"), but there were many other aminos that spiked considerably. The other interesting thing was vitamin B2 showing up out of nowhere. This is a fishless system, so we don't really do much aside from broadcast feeding, and we had zero water changes / changes in our feeding patterns collecting this data, so we're highly confident these were in fact leachates from the mud itself.
We did NOT want another "proprietary amino acid blend" for the market, so here's the list of the aminos we chose (in no particular order): Taurine, Aspartic Acid, Arginine, Tryptophan, Serine, Threonine.
