What are you dosing? Sps keepers.

[VintageReefer]

I’m experimenting with trace enhanced calcium based smart cubes

So far so good but still figuring out the correct number of cubes I need at a time

 

[exnisstech]

What are people using to dose phosphates up on here besides food and reef roids? I’m using trisodium phosphate and every now and then I use reef roids to feed the coral.. pellets seem to spike my p04 when I’m out of town and got an auto feeder going.

I'm also using trisodium phosphate.

Agreed! I got a 23,21,19 myself and my step kids are 19 and 16…

Trade the kids in for an 87 yo mother n law with some dementia and you'll wish the kids were back :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

 

[Reef Rhino]

A Reef system of ~175g with three (3) tanks on a shared sump. Main display (75g) is mixed coral, with an Acro specific frag tank (45g), and a mixed frag cube tank of mostly LPS (30g). Sump is another 25g water volume and is going from soft coral to some extra Acro racks. I pay particular attention to the SPS - Acro needs in the 45g.

Like the articles around New Years' Day, here is what is IN for 2025 and what's heading OUT, and last are the Debatable items where I am on the fence ...

IN

More Water Changes - 10% Weekly goal, Tropic Marin Pro and Classic. (Mix separate but add it 50/50).
Get the D.O.C. out and the trace elements In.

Kalkwasser - Some from a settled vat and also some from a Kalk stirrer. About 50/50 and about 10 liters day.
A perfect arrangement for quite a long while replacing all my evaporation with mostly just Kalkwasser in this sprawling and crowded system ... (But my days may be numbered as coral growth outstrips demand).
Rare occasional Alk additions of BRS Soda Ash or Sodium Bicarbonate.

Ammonium Bicarbonate (DIY) - When nitrate <10-12.

A bit of Reef Roids and Benepets. I need the Phosphate. My system drinks it all up.
My historic numbers are Nitrate ~10-12, and Phosphate ~.02-.03.
(Adding any liquid orthophosphate just always seems to add to algae issues ....)
Going to work in some Captiv8 coral food products as well.

Oyster Feast and R.O.E. - Teaspoon of each, and fish love the R.O.E.

Home grown, Live Phytoplankton (4 types) (Maybe ~400ml / day of the blend)).
(I enjoy percolating it in a "lab" under the stairs and hope I don't turn into a red-green Marvel comic book villain)

Captiv8 Isol8 Trace. Several, but these for sure based on ICP-MS:
a) Fluoride. My system drinks this like water. From hearing interviews - and personal experience - this is anecdotally important. (But don't overdose)
b) Strontium. My system drinks this like water.
c) Triad - Manganese, Iron, and Cobalt.
d) Hexad - Nickel, Zinc, Molybdenum, Vanadium, Selenium, Copper.
e) Potassium Iodide (Captiv8, or may keep using the handy KZ blue bottles)

Lowering D.O.C. (Per Oceamo ICP-MS, SAC254 was ~14, now at ~9.7).
Increasing Skimmer size, and again using activated carbon briefly (24-48 hrs) once a month to lower D.O.C.
Taking seriously Salem Clemens cautions about D.O.C. in our tanks and promoting harmful bacteria.

PNS ProBio Live bacteria. (Strains linked to actual coral usage).
Will now start working some of this in the Acro tank ...

Fish - Flake and pellets in the morning / Rod's Food, PE Mysis, and nori in the evening.

OUT

Sodium Nitrate (DIY). Replaced with Ammonium Bicarbonate.

Liquid Orthophosphate - Just brings me algae, cyano, and junk.
(Some to have on hand for emergency use if phosphate appears bottomed out)

Vodka - Stopped some de minimis vodka additions (only 5ml / day in 175g) to avoid any higher D.O.C. in the tank.

Bottled Bacteria. (Unidentified and/or terrestrial strains not found in Corals or Reefs)

Live Rotifers - I love the idea of bubbling these and dumping them in but the cost and daily work (5-10 minutes) of home grown for debatable benefits, the occasional crashes, and few others advocating for this makes this one over now.

Roti-Rich (Florida Aqua Farms) - Rotifer food and said to be coral food, but yeast and unknown ingredients ...

Brightwell Koral Color (tell me what is in it) and Brightwell Products generally

DEBTABLE

Amino Acids .... Have used KZ LPS Amino and KZ Amino (daily), and Red Sea AB (Weekly).
Taking seriously the number of interviewed Acro farmers who don't seem to bother with Aminos ...
Taking seriously Salem Clemens cautions about aminos and high D.O.C. and promoting harmful bacteria.

KZ Acro Glow - Tell me what's in it ... ?

Tropic Marin A and K. With water changes and targeted trace dosing from ICP and Captiv8, these may be kept on hand but will be rarely used.

KZ Zeo Bak - Might keep a little on hand.

 

[Reef Rhino]

What are people using to dose phosphates up on here besides food and reef roids? I’m using trisodium phosphate and every now and then I use reef roids to feed the coral.. pellets seem to spike my p04 when I’m out of town and got an auto feeder going.

Just the Fish Food and Reef Roids for phosphate.

The liquid orthophosphate just brings me algae, cyano, and junk.

 

[Troylee]

A Reef system of ~175g with three (3) tanks on a shared sump. Main display (75g) is mixed coral, with an Acro specific frag tank (45g), and a mixed frag cube tank of mostly LPS (30g). Sump is another 25g water volume and is going from soft coral to some extra Acro racks. I pay particular attention to the SPS - Acro needs in the 45g.

Like the articles around New Years' Day, here is what is IN for 2025 and what's heading OUT, and last are the Debatable items where I am on the fence ...

IN

More Water Changes - 10% Weekly goal, Tropic Marin Pro and Classic. (Mix separate but add it 50/50).
Get the D.O.C. out and the trace elements In.

Kalkwasser - Some from a settled vat and also some from a Kalk stirrer. About 50/50 and about 10 liters day.
A perfect arrangement for quite a long while replacing all my evaporation with mostly just Kalkwasser in this sprawling and crowded system ... (But my days may be numbered as coral growth outstrips demand).
Rare occasional Alk additions of BRS Soda Ash or Sodium Bicarbonate.

Ammonium Bicarbonate (DIY) - When nitrate <10-12.

A bit of Reef Roids and Benepets. I need the Phosphate. My system drinks it all up.
My historic numbers are Nitrate ~10-12, and Phosphate ~.02-.03.
(Adding any liquid orthophosphate just always seems to add to algae issues ....)
Going to work in some Captiv8 coral food products as well.

Oyster Feast and R.O.E. - Teaspoon of each, and fish love the R.O.E.

Home grown, Live Phytoplankton (4 types) (Maybe ~400ml / day of the blend)).
(I enjoy percolating it in a "lab" under the stairs and hope I don't turn into a red-green Marvel comic book villain)

Captiv8 Isol8 Trace. Several, but these for sure based on ICP-MS:
a) Fluoride. My system drinks this like water. From hearing interviews - and personal experience - this is anecdotally important. (But don't overdose)
b) Strontium. My system drinks this like water.
c) Triad - Manganese, Iron, and Cobalt.
d) Hexad - Nickel, Zinc, Molybdenum, Vanadium, Selenium, Copper.
e) Potassium Iodide (Captiv8, or may keep using the handy KZ blue bottles)

Lowering D.O.C. (Per Oceamo ICP-MS, SAC254 was ~14, now at ~9.7).
Increasing Skimmer size, and again using activated carbon briefly (24-48 hrs) once a month to lower D.O.C.
Taking seriously Salem Clemens cautions about D.O.C. in our tanks and promoting harmful bacteria.

PNS ProBio Live bacteria. (Strains linked to actual coral usage).
Will now start working some of this in the Acro tank ...

Fish - Flake and pellets in the morning / Rod's Food, PE Mysis, and nori in the evening.

OUT

Sodium Nitrate (DIY). Replaced with Ammonium Bicarbonate.

Liquid Orthophosphate - Just brings me algae, cyano, and junk.
(Some to have on hand for emergency use if phosphate appears bottomed out)

Vodka - Stopped some de minimis vodka additions (only 5ml / day in 175g) to avoid any higher D.O.C. in the tank.

Bottled Bacteria. (Unidentified and/or terrestrial strains not found in Corals or Reefs)

Live Rotifers - I love the idea of bubbling these and dumping them in but the cost and daily work (5-10 minutes) of home grown for debatable benefits, the occasional crashes, and few others advocating for this makes this one over now.

Roti-Rich (Florida Aqua Farms) - Rotifer food and said to be coral food, but yeast and unknown ingredients ...

Brightwell Koral Color (tell me what is in it) and Brightwell Products generally

DEBTABLE

Amino Acids .... Have used KZ LPS Amino and KZ Amino (daily), and Red Sea AB (Weekly).
Taking seriously the number of interviewed Acro farmers who don't seem to bother with Aminos ...
Taking seriously Salem Clemens cautions about aminos and high D.O.C. and promoting harmful bacteria.

KZ Acro Glow - Tell me what's in it ... ?

Tropic Marin A and K. With water changes and targeted trace dosing from ICP and Captiv8, these may be kept on hand but will be rarely used.

KZ Zeo Bak - Might keep a little on hand.

Love it man!! Great info here! I’ve always been one to keep it simple cause then im much less likely to screw it up!

 

[Troylee]

I’m experimenting with trace enhanced calcium based smart cubes

So far so good but still figuring out the correct number of cubes I need at a time

Interesting concept! I haven’t heard of these..

 

[Reef Rhino]

As I wrote all that blather I realized how far I have drifted from Keep it Simple ....

 

[Troylee]

Honestly, based on my experience, the time when my tank looked the best and grew the fastest was when I was doing simple weekly 10% water changes and adjusting feeding based on coral color. Back then, I didn’t really care about trace elements. I just had an auto doser running some DIY all-in-one trace mix and never bothered with ICP tests to track levels.

Later on, when life got busier—or let’s be real, when I got lazier—I started doing ICP tests and dosing trace elements automatically using RMS-style formulas. Surprisingly, I didn’t notice any big difference between the two methods. Even though the ICP says my trace levels are on point with RMS, coral color still seems to depend mostly on nitrate and phosphate. (Or maybe both methods gave my corals enough trace elements, so the only real variable left was N and P.)


Honestly, with all the different reefing styles people are using these days, I feel like the real game-changer between tanks is lighting. Same tank, same corals, but when I switched from ATI Straton LEDs to a hybrid T5 Powermodule with LED bars, everything just took off. Coral growth exploded, and the colors got way deeper—like, “Instagram filter but real life” deeper.

Love it! This is how I feel exactly but I can’t make these claims because I haven’t used the shine! I keep it simple and just change water and dose ammonia and phosphate when needed.. could my tank be better? I’m sure! What am I missing? I’ll never know till I send a icp test I’m pretty much against them lol.. I mean maybe one every 6 months would be okay but I’ll never send them in monthly. I might break down and send one in just to see here soon lol.. I typically do a 40% change once a month but it seems to stall my growth when I do and I’m thinking it’s because I remove so much bacteria! I need to get back in the groove of a 10% weekly and observe my corals from there..

 

[reef’r]

Man what I sweet thread full of some SPS hitters! I’m a few months in to the full blown stick head conversion and have a question if I can. How often do you see changes in your PE? I’ve got a couple pieces right now that are usually super fuzzy but the past two days PE has been far less. I know that it can very from day to day just wondering how often yall see sticks lose a little PE before you start to worry

 

[reef’r]

And since this is a thread about dosing, I’m running kalk but a couple days ago I started dosing tropic Marin a and k plus flatworm stop because I had a couple pieces with random tissue loss. Now seeing a bit of PE loss in some pieces, maybe related?

 

[Troylee]

Man what I sweet thread full of some SPS hitters! I’m a few months in to the full blown stick head conversion and have a question if I can. How often do you see changes in your PE? I’ve got a couple pieces right now that are usually super fuzzy but the past two days PE has been far less. I know that it can very from day to day just wondering how often yall see sticks lose a little PE before you start to worry

It could be a few things.. fish nipping them, pests such as white, red or black bugs or aefw etc.. good pe during the day is nice but not always a factor to be healthy or not.. check when the lights are out and see if you got good pe! If you don’t then it’s time to worry. I have some sticks that are furry all day and others that don’t show a polyp till night time but they all grow and have good colors.. I have a couple stubborn ones that are brown but have good pe

 

[Aquariumaddictuk]

It’s interesting that most people start with kalk and add AFR when the kalk can’t keep up. I’m coming from the opposite side with AFR as my initial supplement and wanting to add kalk for the pH boost hoping for a growth increase. I experimented with kalk in my ATO and it seemed very positive for the tank I just didn’t like running it through my ato bc of pump wear and lack of rate control. Now I am wanting to add an over-night slow continuous saturated kalk drip. Do you guys who use kalk think this will increase my growth rate? I’m still a water change guy so I’ll be getting some trace replenishment there too and not planning to completely replace the afr, just supplement it.

Is it worth it to add the dosing pump and kalk routine growth wise? Or should I just continue with AFR only since it’s working well and simple, just maybe missing rapid growth rates.

I have neither the explanation nor credentials to analyse why kalk works so well with sps but it certainly spurred coraline & SPS, especially montipora, growth in mine.
I was dosing a sodium hydroxide based alk anyway so the ph was already optimum.
There’s some weird magic in kalk I swear

 

[Troylee]

And since this is a thread about dosing, I’m running kalk but a couple days ago I started dosing tropic Marin an and k plus flatworm stop because I had a couple pieces with random tissue loss. Now seeing a bit of PE loss in some pieces, maybe related?

Any pictures of said pieces? Where the flesh missing?

 

[Troylee]

I have neither the explanation nor credentials to analyse why kalk works so well with sps but it certainly spurred coraline & SPS, especially montipora, growth in mine.
I was dosing a sodium hydroxide based alk anyway so the ph was already optimum.
There’s some weird magic in kalk I swear

I agree! It was one of the key things that let me be able to keep sps 20 years ago! We didn’t have all the fancy stuff we got today lol! It was kalk or calcium reactors that made it possible for people to keep sps in captivity back in the day!

 

[Aquariumaddictuk]

I agree! It was one of the key things that let me be able to keep sps 20 years ago! We didn’t have all the fancy stuff we got today lol! It was kalk or calcium reactors that made it possible for people to keep sps in captivity back in the day!

The zeo forum(which I’m not bashing.there are tanks on there that make me want to give up reefing)is a little anti kalk due to the flocculation of po4.
This makes no sense to me as we use coral snow which surely does exactly that?
Anyway, I wasn’t willing to give it up.cheap, easy to mix up a big bucket & it just works!
Why it works so well, I’m not sure

 

[Troylee]

I can’t find the post but @SunnyX had posted the Long Island or manhattan aquarium or something along those lines he got a tour of! It was a gigantic reef tank 20,000 gallons or something crazy ran off kalk and metal halides.. maybe he will chime in.

 

[Troylee]

The zeo forum(which I’m not bashing.there are tanks on there that make me want to give up reefing)is a little anti kalk due to the flocculation of po4.
This makes no sense to me as we use coral snow which surely does exactly that?
Anyway, I wasn’t willing to give it up.cheap, easy to mix up a big bucket & it just works!
Why it works so well, I’m not sure

I’ve used Zeo but I don’t strive for the ulns.. I use the stones, bak, food and amino or what ever the base is I don’t remember.. it works great for controlling nutrients lol.. Sunnyx does the same with kalk and zeo!

 

[Aquariumaddictuk]

I’ve used Zeo but I don’t strive for the ulns.. I use the stones, bak, food and amino or what ever the base is I don’t remember.. it works great for controlling nutrients lol.. Sunnyx does the same with kalk and zeo!

Gorgeous tanks.always nice to see his posts on instagram.deceptively simple system too.just run off AFR I believe.

 

[exnisstech]

Question about Bactobalance if you don't mind. I have been dosing N and P off and on for over a year to try and keep numbers off of zero. I started dosing ammonium bicarb 2/1/25 daily then after a week or so I just started adding a 10ml dose randomly depending on my test results. I did my weekly tests this morning and I'm liking my N and P numbers and am wondering if those if you with more experience think now would be a good time to start bacto balance or should I just keep up with the ammonium dosing? I do 2g weekly water changes on 65g total to vacuum detritus so I'm not really depending on changes to control nutrients. I run a reefmat and no skimmer or fuge and the tank still has always run pretty much as a ULNS on jts own.
N amd P test since starting ammonium.

 

[reef’r]

Any pictures of said pieces? Where the flesh missing?

Here are the pieces that had some tissue loss

and then here is the two pieces that have far less PE

shaggy Mili for reference