Reef nutrition

Alex’s IM 150 EXT

My monthly delivery of Live Phytoplankton. I have increased my dose from 100 ml to 150 ml daily (potentially helpful against dinos, I assume indirectly due to increased pod proliferation. Apparantly Tisbee pods eat dinos).

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And since it is all about the biome, I have ordered again from my favorite caulerpa supplier (@JVU - just kidding :)...) three bags of the mud below. I am pretty convinced that this, the Aquabiomics sand, and the live rock in combination enabled my tank to be in the 90 percentile for both diversity and balance in my tank only 30 days after setting it up as per Aquabiomics test. Still, it did not prevent me from getting dinos.

WonderMud
A seawater-based slurry of fine-grained calcium carbonate-based sediments, shell fragments, aerobic organic detritus, beneficial bacteria and marine micro-invertebrates taken fresh daily from our Salt Pond Ecosystem Tanks after more than five years of exposure to continuously flowing, unfiltered reef seawater. Each bag of WonderMud contains several to many specimens of Reef Amphipods, Mama Mia Worms, Baby Bristle Worms, baby shrimps, baby snails and as a very diverse assemblage of reef phytoplankton and zooplankton. Add WonderMud to existing sand substrate in new or established marine aquarium tanks to increase micro-biotic diversity.

: : : : Indo-Pacific Sea Farms : : : :

Indo-Pacific Sea Farms produces captive-bred marine life for healthier reef aquariums: invertebrates, detritivores, live sand, snail grazers, amphipods, beneficial worms, macro algae, plankton, corals, coral food and beneficial bacteria.
ipsf.com

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forums.reefcentral.com

480gl elos braceless earthquake trap

I promised Jesse at ELOS I would post a picture or two a couple months ago, better late than never. New tank will replace 125gl in same room that has broken top brace. Once I finally get the 480gl up and running i'll get rid of the 125gl. I'm on a snails pace is an understatement. Adding to the...
forums.reefcentral.com forums.reefcentral.com
This guy had an amazing tank
I think you may find it an interesting rabbit hole
I knew this tank personally
 
Probably just found the reason why I got dinos.

I have started using the Salifert Phospate test kit for both the Nano and the IM 150 as I started dosing silicates for the IM 150 and Hanna seems to become inaccurate when high amount of silicates are in the water. Also, I wanted to get a second opinion on the several months long high phospates in the nano tank despite barely feeding this tank and after a 50% water change which kept phosphate unchanged.

Turns out the nano tank is close to 0 (last week 0.24 with Hanna), and so is the IM 150 (last week 0.19).

I might need a third opinion now given the big discrepancy between salifert and Hanna, but strongly feel that Salifert is correct at least for the Nano tank.

Still, I believe now that the Dinos resulted from the bottemed out nutrients which were lower for phosphates than what I had measured, giving me a false sense of still having some time to increase them before it gets dangerous.

Happy to hear other views regarding the reliability of the Hanna vs Salifert tests.

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I have never had any reason to doubt the Hanna, and just recently gave away my salifert test or I’d do a comparison for ya. Like Mike I have always struggled with the color tests.
 
derek_SR said:
I have never had any reason to doubt the Hanna, and just recently gave away my salifert test or I’d do a comparison for ya. Like Mike I have always struggled with the color tests.
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Agree. But the silicate dosing is apparently known to throw off the Hanna accuracy, and the suggestion is to use the Salifert or RedSea test kits in the interim.

So my assumption is that the nano tank still had a higher amount of silicates in the water due to previous dosing when this tank had dinos last (12 months ago) which led to the potentially inaccurate results for phosphates throughout. I do not have another explanation really how phosphates stayed at the same level even after a 50% water change.

More interesting though is the accuracy of the phosphates in the IM 150. Tested again this morning with Salifert and still seems to read 0. I also do not like the color tests but this seems rather straightforward here? Could still be a testing error, but 10ml, 4 drops and gently mix for 10 sec, then 1 level scoop and gently mix for 30 secs, seems hard to to do wrong actually.

Interesting though, nitrates are at 16 now (Hanna).

Time for reef roids (?).


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Alexander1312 said:
I have not been dosing any bacterial products in this tank, except this. I am not dosing this for diversity but as coral food and it might potentially strenghten fish health. None of these claims are proven, but it looks like the corals I have love this - I had no coral or fish death, or disease since I started using this 15 months or so ago. Related, not sure. Main disadvantage - it is not cheap unless you buy the large homegrow kit, which also has three species vs only one in the bottle.

www.hydrospace.store

PNS HomeGro™ (2.5 gal) | hydrospace

PNS HomeGro™ is our black-and-white label, brown-box bulk package (finished product treats 8,000+ gallons!). This unique kit allows users to cultivate larger volumes of PNS bacteria economically using commonplace chemicals and implements. It is also a more environmentally sustainable option, as...
www.hydrospace.store www.hydrospace.store

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You think this has anything to do with lowering your numbers since its like live carbon dosing? Some sewage plants/ aqua farmers have used these critters for a long time to help eat/breakdown sludge on large scale operations.
Also wondering have you tried the Yellow Snow?
 
PjFish said:
You think this has anything to do with lowering your numbers since its like live carbon dosing? Some sewage plants/ aqua farmers have used these critters for a long time to help eat/breakdown sludge on large scale operations.
Also wondering have you tried the Yellow Snow?
Click to expand...
Did not know this, thank you. It did contribute potentially to lowering nutrients overall, but I was under the assumption more in relation to lowering nitrates vs phosphates (which seems to ultimately trigger dinos). Main culprit is my refugium IMO, which has become probably too powerful too quickly. And a strong skimmer. Probbaly too much filtration in the beginning for this young tank.

I have only tried the substrate sauce, but not yellow snow.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Did not know this, thank you. It did contribute potentially to lowering nutrients overall, but I was under the assumption more in relation to lowering nitrates vs phosphates (which seems to ultimately trigger dinos). Main culprit is my refugium IMO, which has become probably too powerful too quickly. And a strong skimmer. Probbaly too much filtration in the beginning for this young tank.

I have only tried the substrate sauce, but not yellow snow.
Click to expand...
Don’t eat that yellow snow!
That’s where the Huskies go!
 
14 days into 2ml daily sodium silicate dosing. Good progress on the diatom front and significantly fewer active dinos (LCA) already. Cannot post videos here but I do let the folks from this facebook group comment on the videos, and get mostly reasonable feedback: https://www.facebook.com/groups/259474048655429/permalink/1095844711685021/

Nutrients are up significantly, NO3 is 17, PO4 0.17-0.25, as I cut the refugium light in half from 12 hours daily to 6 hours, and the skimmer is on the lowest setting. Tank looks terrible, but corals do very well.


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Btw do you listen to “Beyond the Reef” podcast? Your boy Claude Schumacher was a guest on a recent episode. Very interesting. Lou from Tropic Marin was also on recently, and they get asked a lot of the same questions.

Very similar responses in many ways, not all. Thought you might appreciate. Both worth a listen IMO.
 
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