What's a good additive.

[Otto330]

I have a 20 gallon. I use reef crystals salt, my LFS sold me red sea AB+ and said dose 2x a week. They also sold me reef snow and said to dose 1x a week.

After i took my numbers on 12/ 3, 1 did a 3 gallon water change 15% . These are my numbers today.

I watched BRT chasing perfection and got a good idea of what i have to do. Dose but I just don't know what product would be the best for a tight buget Please help.

 

[painter1982]

All for Reef would be the simplest. It’s a complete all in one additive. You use alkalinity number to figure out dosage.

 

[Rocks reef]

All of those numbers are quite low.
Mag should be 1350-1400
Nitrate 5-10
Phosphate .05 - .10
Cal 420-450
Alk at a minimum should be around 8

How old is your tank?
What live stock do you have currently?
You can dose products to raise your nitrate and phosphate. There is no need to monitor ammonia or nitrite.
Brightwell sells good products.
NeoPhos for phosphate
NeoNitro for nitrate.
There are also plenty of threads on R2R on how to mix powders and do it yourself.

DIY Nitrate Dosing Recipe

Here’s a quick guide of the DIY nitrate recipes we commonly use for reef tanks. Sodium nitrate and calcium nitrate are the most common materials used. It’s crucial to ensure that these compounds are food-grade or have a purity rating. Sourcing pure chemicals is more economical than purchasing...

www.reef2reef.com

DIY Phosphate Dosing Recipe

Sometimes phosphate can be so stubbornly low that the only way to meaningfully raise it is by directly dosing phosphate. When you feed foods, you’re adding nitrogen, carbon, and loads of organics. This effect is compounded if you’re trying to offset rocks that initially work against you by...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[56longroof]

Somethings not right. With Reef Chrystals your Ca and Kh should be much higher. We are going to need more info on the tank.

 

[Malum Argenteum]

With a calcium of 150, you have a testing error. With a nitrate of zero, you have very low quality test kits. I would recommend getting quality tests before adjusting parameters with additives.

 

[EnterName]

Your LFS seems a bit fishy (pun intended). As @Rocks reef pointed out, many values are far off and neither RedSea ReefEnergy AB+ nor ReefSnow will fix this. These are amino acids, vitamins, and a flocculant which you can use as coral food, but not to fix calcium, magnesium, etc.

@Malum Argenteum and @Rocks reef already pointed out that these parameters do not add up and it is likely a testing error.

 

[Malum Argenteum]

Your LFS seems a bit fishy (pun intended).

LOL.

@Otto330, LFSs will happily sell non-dangerous additives to anyone who stands at the register with money in their hand.

What they'll be less able to do is take the time to troubleshoot issues and give you the honest truth about the situation. One nice thing about forums is that thread repliers aren't trying to separate you from your money so they don't necessarily care if the truth makes you upset and you storm out to go to another store that'll just sell you stuff and make you happy.

I can't comment on the quality of the video you referred to, but keep in mind that YouTube is primarily -- nearly exclusively -- an entertainment website. If a person finds legitimately worthy content there, that's accidental as far as the intent of the site goes. Judging from the parameters you listed, though, the video did not give you the knowledge you need.

 

[jimk60]

I have a 20 gallon. I use reef crystals salt, my LFS sold me red sea AB+ and said dose 2x a week. They also sold me reef snow and said to dose 1x a week.

After i took my numbers on 12/ 3, 1 did a 3 gallon water change 15% . These are my numbers today.

I watched BRT chasing perfection and got a good idea of what i have to do. Dose but I just don't know what product would be the best for a tight buget Please help.

As stated above these numbers don't add up. How are you testing your salinity? If I had to guess I would say your salinity is much lower than the 1.026 you're showing.

 

[Otto330]

I have a 20 gallon. I use reef crystals salt, my LFS sold me red sea AB+ and said dose 2x a week. They also sold me reef snow and said to dose 1x a week.

After i took my numbers on 12/ 3, 1 did a 3 gallon water change 15% . These are my numbers today.

I watched BRT chasing perfection and got a good idea of what i have to do. Dose but I just don't know what product would be the best for a tight buget Please help.

As stated above these numbers don't add up. How are you testing your salinity? If I had to guess I would say your salinity is much lower than the 1.026 you're showing.

Calabrated today with distilled water to 0.

 

[EnterName]

Calabrated today with distilled water to 0.

Don't get me wrong: This can absolutely work with a decent refractometer, but a 35ppt standard is better, because the accuracy of refractometers is highest near their calibration point.

You can create your own "Refractometer calibration standard", which will increase the refractometer's accuracy.

 

[Otto330]

All of those numbers are quite low.
Mag should be 1350-1400
Nitrate 5-10
Phosphate .05 - .10
Cal 420-450
Alk at a minimum should be around 8

How old is your tank?
What live stock do you have currently?
You can dose products to raise your nitrate and phosphate. There is no need to monitor ammonia or nitrite.
Brightwell sells good products.
NeoPhos for phosphate
NeoNitro for nitrate.
There are also plenty of threads on R2R on how to mix powders and do it yourself.

DIY Nitrate Dosing Recipe

Here’s a quick guide of the DIY nitrate recipes we commonly use for reef tanks. Sodium nitrate and calcium nitrate are the most common materials used. It’s crucial to ensure that these compounds are food-grade or have a purity rating. Sourcing pure chemicals is more economical than purchasing...

www.reef2reef.com

DIY Phosphate Dosing Recipe

Sometimes phosphate can be so stubbornly low that the only way to meaningfully raise it is by directly dosing phosphate. When you feed foods, you’re adding nitrogen, carbon, and loads of organics. This effect is compounded if you’re trying to offset rocks that initially work against you by...

www.reef2reef.com

6 months old, 2 clowns, 1 gobie, 1 Damsel, 1 turbo snail, 2 blue foot hermits, a Leptastrea frag, a Cyphastrea frag, 2 inch square GSP, musroom frag and clove polups.

 

[Otto330]

With a calcium of 150, you have a testing error. With a nitrate of zero, you have very low quality test kits. I would recommend getting quality tests before adjusting parameters with additives.

Api for the nitrate and ph. Salifert for calcium, alk, phosphate and magnesium.

 

[ScottJ]

Calabrated today with distilled water to 0.

FWIW, I use that same refractometer. I need to calibrate it every time I use it with 35ppt solution. I mean every every single time, right before I test water. AND if the reading is pretty far off what I expect, I check the calabration again, and it will be off.

It's kind of a pain, but that's what I got to do.

 

[Malum Argenteum]

Api for the nitrate and ph. Salifert for calcium, alk, phosphate and magnesium.

Then the issue is user error. Reef Crystals has above 475ppm Ca when freshly mixed. There seems no way yours could be 150, nor any way it would have dropped 100ppm in five days especially with a WC in between.