Should I dose TM’s all for reef?

mrpontiac80 · Sep 14, 2021

I will test it tonight at the same time and see where it’s at if for nothing else but curiosity

Reef. · Sep 14, 2021

mrpontiac80 said:
I had been using Red Sea, but recently got a Hanna for alk. I was worried about the whole color change deal. Turns out the Hanna matched my Red Sea… but still way easier.

what salt do you use?

mrpontiac80 · Sep 14, 2021

Reef. said:
what salt do you use?

Fritz rpm blue box

ninjamyst · Sep 14, 2021

mrpontiac80 said:
Ninjamyst, for what it’s worth, I have a monti cap near each rear corner of the tank. I have an encrusting fruity pebbles monti on the rear glass and a cyphastrea and another encrusting monti also on rear glass. My devils hand and galaxia are fairly ticked off today but that’s very unusual.

What lights are those? Look pretty dim and not enough coverage. All the corals you named are fast growers.

Reef. · Sep 14, 2021

mrpontiac80 said:
Fritz rpm blue box

so alk at around 8-9, you say your tank is around 7.3, if it has stabilised at 7.3 then that is great, just check it’s not constantly slowing dropping.

ClownSchool · Sep 14, 2021

mrpontiac80 said:
I am in my first year of saltwater. I have a 65 gal AIO and my corals range from mushrooms and zoas to montipora and a frag or two of acropora. I have never dosed anything and corals are doing pretty good but other than a few soft corals and leathers, I am not noticing any real growth. My parameters are pretty stable while using fritz rpm blue box salt.
I just don’t want to fix what is not broken but if I can improve on things I’m all for it. I will include a pic of my parameters as tested last night. Salinity stays at 1.025 but shows 1.024 as of now because I ran out of salt. Working on getting that back up.

Your phosphates are a little high (shouldn’t be over .05) and that usually interferes with calcium absorption.
our parameters and corals are similar and I just started using AllForReef and have notice growth in my montis, but I just added my first acro last week. Good news is, I’ve started seeing polyp extension in my acro, so things seem to be going in the right direction.
good luck!
If you decide against AllForReef, you want to try Kalkwasser.

mrpontiac80 · Sep 14, 2021

ClownSchool said:
Your phosphates are a little high (shouldn’t be over .05) and that usually interferes with calcium absorption.
our parameters and corals are similar and I just started using AllForReef and have notice growth in my montis, but I just added my first acro last week. Good news is, I’ve started seeing polyp extension in my acro, so things seem to be going in the right direction.
good luck!

Thank you. I actually had to dose phosphate back up. I went on vacation a few weeks ago right after pulling fish to go fallow. I didn’t know how to feed the tank or etc so I had my house sitter some food portions for every other day and so on. When I got home the whole tank was covered in brown hair algae and my phosphate was 0 and nitrates took a dump also. I upped my cuc and things have finally gotten better. I am no longer purposely increasing phosphate by the way. Lol

mrpontiac80 · Sep 14, 2021

Reef. said:
so alk at around 8-9, you say your tank is around 7.3, if it has stabilised at 7.3 then that is great, just check it’s not constantly slowing dropping.

That’s another reason I thought they should be higher… to match the salt.

mrpontiac80 · Sep 14, 2021

ninjamyst said:
What lights are those? Look pretty dim and not enough coverage. All the corals you named are fast growers.

AI prime 16 hd. I plan to get a third eventually but that’s what came with the tank. Also my schedule is ramping down when I took the picture.
I was hoping for fast growth on the glass but I may regret it… I hope to find out though lol

ClownSchool · Sep 14, 2021

mrpontiac80 said:
Thank you. I actually had to dose phosphate back up. I went on vacation a few weeks ago right after pulling fish to go fallow. I didn’t know how to feed the tank or etc so I had my house sitter some food portions for every other day and so on. When I got home the whole tank was covered in brown hair algae and my phosphate was 0 and nitrates took a dump also. I upped my cuc and things have finally gotten better. I am no longer purposely increasing phosphate by the way. Lol

Tried the same thing and ended up with Dinos. In hindsight, I think I’d rather the hair algae…At least I’d have an excuse to add a lawnmower Blenny.

mrpontiac80 · Sep 14, 2021

ninjamyst said:
What lights are those? Look pretty dim and not enough coverage. All the corals you named are fast growers.

Thought I’d add.. it’s a Waterbox 65.4 aio. So the height is about 17”. 48” wide and only about 15” deep front to back

Reef. · Sep 14, 2021

mrpontiac80 said:
That’s another reason I thought they should be higher… to match the salt.

Doesn’t matter, only really matters if you do an extra large water change say in an emergency, so yeah good for that reason but alk is easily raised or lowered in salt mix so no real need to match the salt, the difference an average water change would make to alk in the tank is minimal.

It is actually beneficial to you to have a higher alk in your salt as this is what is helping raise your alk with a water change, if it was the same as the tank then the w/c would no be as helpful.