what now in terms of dosing ?

[Marc Foord]

i've been using FM since March. my nitrates never dropped below 25ppm prior to this, but have gradually been dropping (despite feeding the fish more via an auto feeder during the day) to the point where a recentl rest showed 5ppm or thereabouts - seems to certainly be sub 10ppm every time i test now :dance:

po4 is always kept under the thumb with phos remover (ultiphos)

tank is 5 x 2 x 2

up until now i've run with the lith stones in a net bag in the sump (high flow area) - probably about 1kg now i'd guess, bio (8 drops per day, but i've dropped that down to 8 drops probably once or twice a week recently), bak - 4ml per day and min S - 2 ml mixed in food usually every other day.

i also add a few ml of ultraorganic once or twice a week.

going forward, what should i be dosing (and how much) now the nitrates are getting low ?

(as a sidenote, my calerpa is still growing in the sump pretty well)

thanks

marc

[Shultz]

Hi Marc,

Depends what corals you have in your tank? if you have gorg's, goni's etc you could try a mix of the foods with the minS in?

SPS then you might wanna look at the new food for those?

Keith the FM mini guru is the best one to answer this as he understands it a lot better than me!

Cheers, Shelton.

[Marc Foord]

hi shelton

softies and lps mate, SPS free zone :D

sorry, should've mentioned, i add the powdered foods most days - ultra sea fan, min F and clam - mixed in with flake.....

just interested in whether i should lower/increase/stay the same with the bak and if i still need to add the bio (and if so, only once a month or ?)

ta

marc

[Shultz]

I can't help with the Bio as I didn't get on very well with that & swapped to the Prodibio Biodigest & just dose that once a fortnight now.....

Do you add the MinS to your food? In theory you can keep upping the bak until you get a white film on the glass, I never did & just found the amount of green algae on the glass appeared a lot quicker?

I did have levels around the 0.8 phos at one point though, so might have been that combined with it?

Since I add vingear dosed kalk at night & MinS in the food mix every day they both contain carbons so I don't feel I need to dose too much bak?

I could be looking at it the wrong way though?

Cheers, Shelton.

[KeithM]

Hi Marc,

Bio dosing sound about right. 8-10 drops every week to fornight will be fine. The bacterias will have been established and you just need to top them up every now and then. Store the bio bottle somewhere cool but it doesn't need to be refigerated. Should last you ages!

How is the algae growth on your glass? how long does it take to start seeing that fine dusting on the front glass after you clean it?

Also, I take it you're not dosing any MinS directly into the tank?

IMHO, you have two options.

1. increase ultrabak very slightly (~0.2ml) just to take up that last bit of nitrate.

2. start directly dosing a small amount of minS directly to the tank. This will benefit your corals and boost the bacteria as it contains both amino acids and a small amount of carbon.

Out of those two options, I would personally dose a small amount of MinS directly into the tank seeing as you are already beyond the max ultrabak dosing. Start with about 0.3 - 0.5ml MinS dose directly into the tank for about a 1-2 weeks and see how your tank responds. Keep using phosphate removers throughout

I recently tried upping my ultrabak dosing until I got the white film on my glass. Its not a good idea to try this ...after discussions with Claude, the excessive bacteria levels caused acidification and lowered PH. This caused localised nutrients to be released from the rocks which is fuelling an caulerpa outbreak! I've now decreased the ultrabak dosing and the caulerpa growth has certainly slowed. Going to tweak it a bit until it all goes!

[Marc Foord]

many thanks for the in-depth reply keith (and thanks also to shelton) :thumbsup:

will try dosing a squirt of min S directly each day as well as every few days with the food and will see how it goes.

:thanks:

marc

[Marc Foord]

How is the algae growth on your glass? how long does it take to start seeing that fine dusting on the front glass after you clean it?

the fine dusting starts back prob the next day after cleaning, but doesn't warrant cleaning for prob 3 days i'd say....

[Marc Foord]

quick update. nitrates still stuck somewhere between 5-10 on the salifert (if i put the vial over the top of 10 i can see the colour from the card through it, so i think that means it's below 10....i can't see the colour for 5 from the card though, so i assume that means it's above 5). dunno whether i'm stressed about it anymore as it's always staying put - i.e. no creep back up - and that's despite feeding more in the last few months due to the auto feeder going online plus sun coral feeding etc...but intrigued why it is the FM system can't knock the levels down sub 5 ppm.....

i did try a few squirts of min S every day, but started getting some cyno on the back glass and noticed some air bubbles forming on some of the rock work (cyno-related usually), so backed that off and this has gone again - so currently only dose a bit of min S every few days max.......

would welcome thoughts on this anyhow :)

[C. Schuhmacher]

Hi Marc

I don´t know if it will be a good idea
to take the no3 to much down
When U Min S makes cyanos then you have to much Po4 depots
Try one thing
Please add one drop more Ultrabio and a little bit more BAK

Greets Claude

[Marc Foord]

hi claude, hope you are well.....thanks for the reply.

i tested PO4 the other day and it's zero - i run a fair amount of media 24 x 7 in a filter and reactor.

i currently don't regularly dose bio - 12 drops every so often as i was told at this stage there is no need ? i currently dose 4ml of BAK daily which i was told was pretty much max (tank is 5 x 2 x 2)

marc

[KeithM]

As per Claude, try increasing bak a little to about 4.2 - 4.4ml per day and keep running the phosphate removers.