Reef Moonshiners V All for Reef

[Troylee]

Here are my ICP results (ATI) from my dive in December. Fiji. I've started to collect them from my various dive locations for fun. No other reason.

Edit: for the record I reach out to ATI to let them know my sample is NSW. I don't believe it matters but I feel better in case they do something to their equipment before, after or question results that are lower.

I don’t think I could ever afford all them elements. I do have some tungsten for my tig welder I could throw in.

 

[TwelveL16]

Here are my ICP results (ATI) from my dive in December. Fiji. I've started to collect them from my various dive locations for fun. No other reason.

Edit: for the record I reach out to ATI to let them know my sample is NSW. I don't believe it matters but I feel better in case they do something to their equipment before, after or question results that are lower.

pretty interesting, maybe trace elements are a scam with zinc, iron, and manganese all being low. Feel like I just wasted 300 dollars on trace elements.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Here are my ICP results (ATI) from my dive in December. Fiji. I've started to collect them from my various dive locations for fun. No other reason.

Edit: for the record I reach out to ATI to let them know my sample is NSW. I don't believe it matters but I feel better in case they do something to their equipment before, after or question results that are lower.

Edit 2: This is ATI OES. They also offer the lower level assessment now which is what, ICP-MS. I do not see the need for lower levels as this is just for fun.

Thanks for posting it. :)

 

[areefer01]

pretty interesting, maybe trace elements are a scam with zinc, iron, and manganese all being low. Feel like I just wasted 300 dollars on trace elements.

I should have added, and since went back to clarify, which ATI method I am using. Just the ICP-OES. I did not see a need to do the MS version which they recently started to offer.

 

[CBonito]

If your just getting started with coral I would highly recommend keeping it as simple as possible and experiment later when you get more of an idea what your tank actually needs. Simple can be so much less frustrating early on.
This tank ran on only kalk for over 6 years. I had a lot of evaporation so I was able to dose enough saturated kalk to keep up.

EDIT: I didn't even know about trace elements. I just did a WC once in a while with IO purple.

Beautiful Tank.

And the irony is like you said. It's not that difficult to do. Technology seems to move sideways in this hobby and gets people into trouble. Myself included. We want all this gadgetry and the latest this and that and all these complicated methods...but if you can get results like this up above with a basic method, then heck why not?

 

[wickedxreef]

If one only wants to maintain NSW levels of everything, that’s a fine goal, but opens one up to a huge assortment of new supplements, uranium, plutonium, etc.

Couldn’t be at all from stuff dumped in the ocean or any kind of nuclear reactors.

 

[Troylee]

Couldn’t be at all from stuff dumped in the ocean or any kind of nuclear reactors.

I was thinking they tested the water from the Middle East myself.

 

[rtparty]

There are.

@rtparty

I dosed bottles of rubidium to my old 250 and dosed at least a bottle of it to my 120 before that

I can’t say I saw a lick of difference in either tank.

Here is the 250 a few months after I stopped the Moonshiners method. Not a great pic at all on my part but best I have:

Here is right before I sold all the livestock:

Colors weren’t exactly where I wanted but were on their way IMO. Letting N completely bottom out was a setback for sure.

 

[billyocean]

RM is what I use currently but with diy on the things like mang/flouride/iron etc that I run through quickly so the cost isnt that bad. It was more of an experiment for upgrading to a 300 gallon tank from a 125. The 125 had weekly/biweekly water changes and color was good....added kz1234 and color improved but not dramatically. Figured the less waterchanges with RM and no kz1234 saved time and money so I went that route. My color is still fine with this method also. Takes about 2 minutes a day to dose. Afr was a consideration but consumption at 2.5dkh a day was going to be pricey for it. I do like @Troylee idea on using the kalk to lessen the afr dose. I did the same with kalk at night to lessen my soda ash (carbonate) dosing because I was going through 450ml a day on 260 actual gallons of water volume. On a smaller tank or one with less demand AFR seems like the logical choice for ease of use and effectiveness. Anhyoo....my 2 cents.

 

[areefer01]

I dosed bottles of rubidium to my old 250 and dosed at least a bottle of it to my 120 before that

I can’t say I saw a lick of difference in either tank.

Here is the 250 a few months after I stopped the Moonshiners method. Not a great pic at all on my part but best I have:

Here is right before I sold all the livestock:

Colors weren’t exactly where I wanted but were on their way IMO. Letting N completely bottom out was a setback for sure.

Must love the Gold Lined Rabbit - if that is what you had. Mine is a voracious eater of anything algae. Well, of anything in general but the tamest goofball of a fish I have ever owned.

 

[rtparty]

Must love the Gold Lined Rabbit - if that is what you had. Mine is a voracious eater of anything algae. Well, of anything in general but the tamest goofball of a fish I have ever owned.

I really miss that fish, the foxface, and the convict tang. The rabbit and foxface were the biggest scaredy cats ever! They had the power to fight anything they wanted but were puppy dogs

 

[areefer01]

RM is what I use currently but with diy on the things like mang/flouride/iron etc that I run through quickly so the cost isnt that bad. It was more of an experiment for upgrading to a 300 gallon tank from a 125. The 125 had weekly/biweekly water changes and color was good....added kz1234 and color improved but not dramatically. Figured the less waterchanges with RM and no kz1234 saved time and money so I went that route. My color is still fine with this method also. Takes about 2 minutes a day to dose. Afr was a consideration but consumption at 2.5dkh a day was going to be pricey for it. I do like @Troylee idea on using the kalk to lessen the afr dose. I did the same with kalk at night to lessen my soda ash (carbonate) dosing because I was going through 450ml a day on 260 actual gallons of water volume. On a smaller tank or one with less demand AFR seems like the logical choice for ease of use and effectiveness. Anhyoo....my 2 cents.

Those of us pushing high demand continue to message, politely, Tropic Marin to let them know we would like a larger powder container offering. If nothing else have them try to find something that increases our purchasing power for the powder yet also meet their logistical needs of shipping/freight the product. 1600g at the moment makes 10 liters is the best we have as the 5 gallon bucket isn't really a cost savings or at least that is what I've heard.

Kalkwasser helps but we just have to remember that for every alk we get from Kalk we are not from AFR so lost whatever those trace elements would be. Probably nothing, maybe something, I don't know that math.

I know I'm getting ready to supplement kalkwasser with AFR use.

 

[Bartanto]

~150 gallons, 1 year old. 130ml AFR daily, (25ml AB+ and a healthy splash o’ phyto weekly). That’s it. I love it. Why? Easy and nothing seems to be dying*

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

I’m a fan of AFR

 

[RobertK]

I agree with the newb comment. If you’re just starting out I would focus on the following in a stepwise approach.

In order of priority (my opinion). You should probably be able to keep corals alive and well after step 1.

Of course you have to to the very basic stuff first. proper cycle, stable temp, stable SG with a way to top off after evaporation


Step 1- Alk and Ca. Get a stable tank with regard to Alk and Ca. You can do this with balling, AFR, Kalk, calcium reactor, combo of any of these. Just pick a method. Depending on what you’re keeping for a simpler tank some people get by w only water changes. I did this for years on my first ever tank.

2) Nutrients. If your dialed on this Alk/ca, I would focus on nutrients (phos/nitrate). I had previously underestimated how important these things were. My corals were much happier after I raised levels up from zero.

Ratios are highly debated so I won’t comment on that. I think most people would agree you don’t want them zero (ULNS less popular today). Phos 0.02-0.1. Nitrates probably 2-20 or higher. Most people are not using GFO anymore.

3) Trace elements. As stated by others in the post there are a variety of ways to do this. Every company sells some kind of product. AFR is easy. Tropic Marin also makes A and K which you can add into your balling method. Red Sea has trace element bottles ABCD, triton/RMS, there are also a lot of DIY trace solutions out there too.

4) play with pH if you desire. I feel like this is the least important.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you for posting it. I am not just starting out, have had my tank for 20+ years, but have not kept up with advances in the hobby and get confused sifting through the many different products and methods that are currently discussed. I would say I'm on step 2 now, getting ready for step 3.

 

[stenopus]

Sooner or later you will have problems with all for reef and organic based products. Many tanks crashed i warned you.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Sooner or later you will have problems with all for reef and organic based products. Many tanks crashed i warned you.

What problem causes a crash?

Did you experience a crash attributed to AFR?

 

[areefer01]

Sooner or later you will have problems with all for reef and organic based products. Many tanks crashed i warned you.

And this is why we need a down-vote button.

 

[skey44]

I’m late to the conversation but I like AFR with diluted kalk in ato. Weekly 10 ga WC (12%) never had as much success reefing as I am now. And I find it to be a relatively simple method. I’ve considered ICP testing but honestly don’t see any need at all at this time. I’m with @Troylee I need some impressive arguments and proof/results of better that I just haven’t seen presented.
I like the simplicity and the results.

 

[Troylee]

Sooner or later you will have problems with all for reef and organic based products. Many tanks crashed i warned you.

Please explain…