PRODBIO Started on my tank

[Skimmerking]

Well I took the advice of Colby and other's about the Prodbio and started the Dosing:
5 x Biodigest
5 x Bioptim
Now i hear to stop the skimmer for a couple of hours and then I hear to Keep the skimmer going.

Im not doing the Full Prodbio just slowly getting into it :wink:

[RedCoralEdmonton]

I would leave it running, thats what I do on the systems at work... the only time to shut it off is when you dose Reef Booster.....

Steve

[Skimmerking]

ok that is what I got from another person too:mrgreen:

[toxic111]

Yep. Leave it on. Except for booster. That will give you lots of bubbles

[Reefie]

Tagging along! I'm currently on ZEO at the moment, and the DAILY dosing is taking up too much commitment and time.

[globaldesigns]

Yup, leave the skimmer running. You turn it off for the booster

Welcome to the club, i like it so far, but a am also a newbie.

[mseepman]

I too just started doing prodibio on my little 70gal. At MACNA I won enough to dose this tank for about 3 - 4 months.

I wanted to get a good handle on it on this tank since I just bought a years supply from OA for the big 290g tank that is not even going yet. Some serious money for these big tanks but I figure if I'm going to try this...I gotta give it a year. I also hear its great for getting a tank going.

[Skimmerking]

ya i will spend about 120 every 3 months so that isnt so bad. its a Good FIx:lol:

[reefme]

I start it mine last week.Do you shut down the GFO and carbon?

[toxic111]

Shut down the gfo. Leave the carbon. I had better success when I stopped with the gfo. Been running it for over a year now

[Skimmerking]

So just using the bio digest and bioptim what will just that do

[lockrookie]

what i really like is the description on the startup formula:

Start Up enables you to quickly introduce 1/3 of your toughest fish into your
new aquarium (after four hours for freshwater tanks and 12 hours for marine
water tanks

so in other words if they are not tough they may die.... lol

[Myka]

So just using the bio digest and bioptim what will just that do

IME it will improve the coral colors, not much more than that. However, the advertising claims it will lower nutrients. I haven't seen this effect myself. I've been using Biodigest and Bioptim for 10 months or so.

[mseepman]

At MACNA, I was watching one of the seminars and part of the discussion was Nutrients and ULNS...one of the comments was that shortly after starting Prodibio or Zeo or Fauna products like that, many aquarium owners increased their feeding for some unknown reason. Possibly because we were worried about starving the corals. I guess they noticed food was disappearing faster in their case study.
Funny how the human brain works but I wouldn't doubt that people did this for reasons they didn't even realize.

I'm on my first dose right now, but I took my numbers (they were way too high) and I will start to measure them every week for the next 3 months to see what happens.

[Myka]

My fish are darn near anorexic. :lol:

[toxic111]

I don't know if lowers things or not. But I do know I was having algae issues with test readings of undetectable (phos on a hanna reader was 0). After around 6mo of dosing I didn't have problems with algae any more.

My tank is doing better than it ever has, with no other changes. I never changed feeding habits or anything else except the dosing.

[Skimmerking]

PIC please Toxic

[toxic111]

PIC please Toxic

There is a FTS in the 2012 FTS thread

[BigAl07]

I'm tagging along as I just started my BioCLEAN regimen last week. 6 weeks of that then introduce the REEFBOOSTER and other vials to the mix.

[don.ald]

what if you run cheato or other macro algaes in a sump. do you have to remove these before treatment?

[daniella3d]

That's a bummer. I was going to switch to this from Brightwell in hope of getting a ULN. I have hair algae growing on my plugs and it is driving my nuts. It does not grow much elsewhere but it show that I do have some phosphates. Nitrates are very low, less than 2ppm.

So far after about 10 days of using Brightwell I have not seen any reduction of nutrients either. Maybe dosing a bit of vodka will help? How long are you supposed to be dosing with Probidio before seing any reduction in nitrates? I have not change my feeding habit.

IME it will improve the coral colors, not much more than that. However, the advertising claims it will lower nutrients. I haven't seen this effect myself. I've been using Biodigest and Bioptim for 10 months or so.

[BigAl07]

I don't think you "Have" to remove them but running a ULNS wont usually give you great Macro growth anyway. I've seen a few instances where it's led to an eventually scaling back or demise of some Macro Algae which makes sense if you look at what you're trying to do in the first place.

[globaldesigns]

Shut down the gfo. Leave the carbon. I had better success when I stopped with the gfo. Been running it for over a year now

That is good to know, I removed my purigen last week, as I figured I didn't need it.

[globaldesigns]

what if you run cheato or other macro algaes in a sump. do you have to remove these before treatment?

I have alot of cheato, and haven't removed it yet. And the cheato is still growing, more slowly now, but there is still growth. So I am leaving mine in for now.

[lastlight]

I have alot of cheato, and haven't removed it yet. And the cheato is still growing, more slowly now, but there is still growth. So I am leaving mine in for now.

Perfect. I'm inviting you over for some reef banter... bring that chaeto before you kill it! Us poor kids need the stringy green stuff =)

[toxic111]

I have alot of cheato, and haven't removed it yet. And the cheato is still growing, more slowly now, but there is still growth. So I am leaving mine in for now.

Mine has slowed tons too.. still alive though, and I still have a little algae in the tank, but I don't have a big CUC. Now if my 12gal AIO tank at the office would clean up I would be habby.. can't seem to kill the algae there

[BigAl07]

Mine has slowed tons too.. still alive though, and I still have a little algae in the tank, but I don't have a big CUC. Now if my 12gal AIO tank at the office would clean up I would be habby.. can't seem to kill the algae there

Re: 12g office tank - I assume you're doing this treatment there as well? I have a 12g Nanocube here on my desk at work and even with not feeding hardly anything for a year I have more Algae than water LOL! I was going to run Prodibio on this tank if I saw positive results on the larger tank at home.

[toxic111]

yep I am dosing it as well on the 12gal. There is only one small fish in there (firefish) about 10lbs of live rock, some mushrooms & some zoas. I am dealing with about 3 different types of algae in it. Feeding is limited to 4 or 6 little pellets a day 4 days a week. Water changes are 3gal once a week. There is no skimmer which may be one of the issues.

[BigAl07]

yep I am dosing it as well on the 12gal. There is only one small fish in there (firefish) about 10lbs of live rock, some mushrooms & some zoas. I am dealing with about 3 different types of algae in it. Feeding is limited to 4 or 6 little pellets a day 4 days a week. Water changes are 3gal once a week. There is no skimmer which may be one of the issues.

I only have 1 fish (tiny True Perc), a strong clean up crew, a beautiful Devils Finger leather, 3 Zoa colonies, and in about 2 hours a pair of green hammer coral. I do water changes about 5 every 2 weeks or so and I feed a few mysis, a tiny drop of cyclopeeze and that's about it on Mon, Wed, Friday. That's it and I'm still fighting this stuff. I don't feed any "Processed" or prepared foods what so ever. I'm lost.

Maybe I need to order another BioCLEAN kit and start it on this tank here at work. I think I'll do that right now.

[Myka]

Chaeto is the shizz. :D A well done Chaeto filter can do wonders. Best part? No chems or dosing!

[asylumdown]

yep I am dosing it as well on the 12gal. There is only one small fish in there (firefish) about 10lbs of live rock, some mushrooms & some zoas. I am dealing with about 3 different types of algae in it. Feeding is limited to 4 or 6 little pellets a day 4 days a week. Water changes are 3gal once a week. There is no skimmer which may be one of the issues.

I only have 1 fish (tiny True Perc), a strong clean up crew, a beautiful Devils Finger leather, 3 Zoa colonies, and in about 2 hours a pair of green hammer coral. I do water changes about 5 every 2 weeks or so and I feed a few mysis, a tiny drop of cyclopeeze and that's about it on Mon, Wed, Friday. That's it and I'm still fighting this stuff. I don't feed any "Processed" or prepared foods what so ever. I'm lost.

Maybe I need to order another BioCLEAN kit and start it on this tank here at work. I think I'll do that right now.

I had similar problems in my old 20 gallon. In tanks that small, there's just not enough water volume to dilute the small amount of nutrients you're adding through even sparse feedings between water changes, especially if there's no skimmer or other method of removing them as they're produced (other than the algae of course). I'd be willing to bet that Prodibio won't totally solve the problem, since I bet even the tiny amount of nitrate/phosphate produced per feeding is enough to keep the algae going. Even the most Spartan feeding regime in a tank that small can lead to severe eutrophication in a matter of days.

I know what I'm about to say is complete reef heresy, but I think you should explore how feasible it would be to do much larger water changes, as I bet that would solve your problem. I set up a 5 gallon pico tank to tide me over while my new one is being built following the 'eco-reef one' philosophy (http://reefbuilders.com/2010/04/22/ecoreef-one-a-model-for-a-low-energy-nano-reef-tank/) and while I thought 100% water changes were nuts at first, it's so far blown my more traditional 20 gallon nano out of the water in terms of coral performance. Other than a brief diatom bloom, there's been zero issues with algae, and I'm feeding all the corals pretty aggressively, getting one syringe full of Acans plus early in the week, and a mysis shrimp per polyp later in the week.

doing a 100% water change on a 12 gallon would be way more of a chore than a tiny 5 gallon, but maybe if you did it one out of every two or three water changes, you'd progressively deplete any built up crud in the tank that's adding excess nutrients.

And no, so far I haven't seen any negative side effects on the corals from doing 100% water changes (with really close attention paid to matching temp and salinity). Within an hour they're all as inflated and happy as they were before I started.