As a new reef keeper trying these products for myself I think there not as simple as they could be.
Some people claim plus np and bacto balance almost act similar in there tank as there both carbon dosing, even though plus is supposed to be milder form of carbon dosing with added N and P, people report very slow increase of nutrients with plus Np.
I think with any carbon dosing it seems if your nutrients are bottoming out or your water is cloudy your adding to much, I experienced this with plus np even though it’s designed to add nutrients
In my case it was easy to get bacterial blooms so I’m having to let it clear and try a much lower dose.
I’m going to try and gauge my plus NP dose more in line with the bacto balance calculator to see if I can slowly increase my nutrients without bacterial blooms or bottoming N and P out
With carbon dosing halving the recommended starting dose is probably a good idea to see if there’s any negative effects.
I think a easier practice as other people have suggested is adding individual P and N separately to get them where you want them before using a carbon source like plus np or bacto balance
You can use off the shelf products like neophos for P and neonitro for N or food grade sources like the ones randy recommends which can be dosed to fine tune your levels.
I know it’ feels nicer to stay in tropic marins micro system but maybe it’s easier using other products before there carbon ?
Reef zelements carbon System has a carbon source a N source and a P source so you can individually tune it, seems more intuitive personally
I’m going to keep trying the plus NP at a low dose to see if I can get my nutrients stable and I have the phosfeed which does seem to give the P a nice bump but I may end up using neophos and neo nitro if needed because I can put them on a doser
Then I’ll give the bacto balance a try.
