Additives that actually help corals.

[rhody605]

Hello all. I am perplexed by the number of bottles of additives for corals. Vitamins and additional minerals
Phyoto, zooplex, The list goes on.

There are also several brands. Kent, Reef. Sea chem.

So my long listed question is what do you prefer or suggest that helps maintain/ promote coral growth?
But I'm not referring to calc, alk, or mag doses.


Mike

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[reefwars]

lights ;PP


check out fauna marin they have some nice stuff for corals:)

[mrhasan]

Hello all. I am perplexed by the number of bottles of additives for corals. Vitamins and additional minerals
Phyoto, zooplex, The list goes on.

There are also several brands. Kent, Reef. Sea chem.

So my long listed question is what do you prefer or suggest that helps maintain/ promote coral growth?
But I'm not referring to calc, alk, or mag doses.


Mike

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Mysis shrimp and brine shrimp :D

I got an acan from Denny (reefwars) like a month ago with around 3 or 4 heads and it became 8; thanks to mysis, brine, water change, no additives/suppliments, some flaming (:razz:) and great advice from some great people :D

Not to forget light ;)

[whatcaneyedo]

If your lighting, water quality, filtration or flow is less than optimal no amount of additives will provide much benefit. And this works both ways, if your system is the pinnacle of perfection then tampering with the ecological balance you've achieved may actually adversely effect the inhabitants of your tank. Basically its my belief that 99% of the 'additives' (apart from food and calcium carbonate supplements) available are a waste of money that should better be spent on aquarium equipment. That being said, I do use a little bit of Lugol's Solution each week. :mrgreen: I know, I'm a hypocrite.

[kien]

Hello all. I am perplexed by the number of bottles of additives for corals...
Mike

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There is one additive that I've found really helps coral in my experience. Salt. Trust me, it works!


______
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[Aquattro]

There is one additive that I've found really helps coral in my experience. Salt. Trust me, it works!


That's so old school.

[kien]

That's so old school.

you wanna talk about old school? I'm still running metal halides :lol: I know, some of you young pups are probably like, WTF is a metal halide?!

Anyway, further on the topic of additives. I myself have steered away from anything that I didn't know what it did for the tank. A lot of bottles have very vague descriptions of their purpose and sometimes contents even.

[Reef_Geek]

it's so true though. I was at a LFS and looking at their wall of bottles... the shop keeper walks by and points out about 6 different bottles that are 'must haves' and walks away. My wife comments, "too bad there's not one product that has everything" to which I replied... "there is, it's called salt mix"

PS- I too am old school. My tank is "Berlin System" except I've upgraded my MH to LED. No sump, just a whole lotta live rock.

http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/10612_10151286583717953_754167112_n.jpg

[reefwars]

i drop a big mac combo daily into my system....at night we do cheesecake
:P

[Reef_Geek]

and Schooner lager from Oland Brewery

only east coast beers work... it's the strangest thing.

Alexander Keith's used to work but now it just lowers salinity... had to settle for Moosehead. Clancy's Red works magic but difficult to find outside of maritimes.

[reefermadness]

Really....there are very few products I trust are worth it and personally I use none and get fairly good success (dont you think?)
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/dvanacker/200g/2012-10-JORDAN/DarrylsTOTMPhotos-2.jpg

[reefwars]

vit c dose.


i just aquaired a bunch of frags i sold someone back over this year and they were in a ulns....

well i showed a few people the color differences in the pieces i sold and the pieces i kept for myself.....its night and day when they are side by side


the stuff from the ulns looks like its working hard to get even a bit of color while the stuff in my tank is vibrant(not talking about sps too eary in the game for me to tell with sps) ...i thought it was suppose to be the other way around??


im actually going to make a friend a bunch of frags and stick them in his sps dominant tank and compare colors in the future for ****s and giggles:)

[FragIt Dan]

I agree with the 'Salt' comments... there is little substitute for a good salt and regular (weekly maybe) water changes. Alternatively, less frequent water changes (perhaps monthly) can result in some of the elements in your tank to become depleted.
When I am keeping up with my my water changes the only thing I add is food (other than Ca and carbonates) and have liked Zeovit's Coral Vitalizer, but it is a bit pricey for me. Recently I have gotten into Reef Snow from Brightwell Aquatics (BA) and am happy with both the product and price.
When I am doing water changes less than weekly I dose KoralColor, also from BA, although most of the other trace element supplements out there will likely be just as good. Also, when my blues/purples are fading, I dose Potassium (K) and notice a big difference after a few days of dosing (the brand probably matters little for this). I have also been messing around with Boron (branded as BoroChrom, also from BA ), and found it really helps with my reds in several, but interestingly not all, of my sps/lps. It is not that expensive and you only add one or two mls a couple of times a week, so a $15 bottle lasts forever.
But, as I said, I don't use any of that stuff when I am doing regular water changes :)


Dan

[albert_dao]

... Okay guys, c'mon here. This is so heavily biased and misinformed.

There are plenty of additives out there that work plenty fine. Just because your corals are colorful doesn't mean they can't be MORE colorful, or colorful in different shades. Same goes for growth, polyp extension, and longterm success (especially in the case of certain Goniopora and Cespitularia.

It's so frustrating seeing people assuming that their work is complete and that no amount of tinkering or experimentation will do anything to make it "better".

[reefwars]

... Okay guys, c'mon here. This is so heavily biased and misinformed.

There are plenty of additives out there that work plenty fine. Just because your corals are colorful doesn't mean they can't be MORE colorful, or colorful in different shades. Same goes for growth, polyp extension, and longterm success (especially in the case of certain Goniopora and Cespitularia.

It's so frustrating seeing people assuming that their work is complete and that no amount of tinkering or experimentation will do anything to make it "better".

yeah happens alot of reefcentral the first topic of food or additives comes up and a bunch of sps guys come on and say look at my full tank grew with nothing but goodlights flow and water.

i def believe there are alot of products that help both in growth and color.

[lockrookie]

Just because the can says male enhansment doesn't mean it will work... I think what the op is looking for is what ppl use that has made improvement without them wasting their money on miracle potions so to speak. I may try vitc myself


Sent from my porcelain aquarium

[reefwars]

no sense adding anything unless you know why your adding it...adding anything blindly or just for the hell is risky.

find out what you want to achieve and base your search off that)

[reefermadness]

... Okay guys, c'mon here. This is so heavily biased and misinformed.

There are plenty of additives out there that work plenty fine. Just because your corals are colorful doesn't mean they can't be MORE colorful, or colorful in different shades. Same goes for growth, polyp extension, and longterm success (especially in the case of certain Goniopora and Cespitularia.

It's so frustrating seeing people assuming that their work is complete and that no amount of tinkering or experimentation will do anything to make it "better".I've had poor colours dosing nothing......and tried quite a few additives with little results as well. Now I have very good colours (once I gained the experience) with out dosing anything. How is this biased or misinformed?

Im not saying none of them work....some of them probably do work but dont need them to achieve great colours. Could my colours be better.....honestly I dont see a product that would make enough difference for me to bother....and its may even be risky to my success.

[albert_dao]

I've had poor colours dosing nothing......and tried quite a few additives with little results as well. Now I have very good colours (once I gained the experience) with out dosing anything. How is this biased or misinformed?

Im not saying none of them work....some of them probably do work but dont need them to achieve great colours. Could my colours be better.....honestly I dont see a product that would make enough difference for me to bother....and its may even be risky to my success.

Look, your tank is nice. But I wouldn't label your success the logical conclusion of SPS reef keeping and color refining. Allow me to show you an example of color refining using additives:

http://i.imgur.com/WcMjm.jpg?1


http://i.imgur.com/jClKY.jpg?1


Sorry about the blurry cellphone pictures.

Top image is your typical purple valida.

Bottom image is after it has been played with using several additives.

I'm not talking about merely keeping animals alive. One should be competent in that regard PRIOR to attempting any sort of additive dosing. What I'm talking about is enhancement/modification of the corals.

Just because you're proficient at something, that doesn't mean there isn't an entirely different way of looking at where success begins and ends. I'm not here to argue about the NEED to use additives, I'm saying they have their time and place should you have the patience, discipline and observational skills necessary to utilize them. I call you biased because you look at your results and assume that's all there is to it. That is incorrect.

[albert_dao]

Let's make this a little more obvious:

Side by side:

http://i.imgur.com/j5pRZ.jpg

[reefermadness]

If I can have great colours using IO, DIY 3 part and no additives.....what does that mean? I tried navagating the endless confussion of supplements. Like I said some do work like AA but most are not needed in a healthy tank....mostly its just a money generator for these companies. What is worse is that they dont need to tell you whats in them......I could spit in a bottle and put a fancy name on it and sell it as an crazy coral colour enhancer.

Most of my favorite tanks utilize none to very few additives.

Wicked Frags Ultimate Bonsai
http://www.myreeftank.ca/data/images1/p5265517.jpg

[whatcaneyedo]

These pictures were from my TOTM a few years ago before I screwed things up with biopellets. I'm slowly getting back to this point the old fashion way (water changes) once again. That little mistake set me back 2 years worth of growth with some specimens. If it aint broken don't fix it right?

For the sake of the thread starter maybe you could list some of the additives that you've used that you credit your success to. That is after all what this thread was intended for.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1329.jpg

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh109/whatcaneyedo/Picture1922.jpg

[albert_dao]

If I can have great colours using IO, DIY 3 part and no additives.....what does that mean? I tried navagating the endless confussion of supplements. Like I said some do work like AA but most are not needed in a healthy tank....mostly its just a money generator for these companies. What is worse is that they dont need to tell you whats in them......I could spit in a bottle and put a fancy name on it and sell it as an crazy coral colour enhancer.

Most of my favorite tanks utilize none to very few additives.

Wicked Frags Ultimate Bonsai
http://www.myreeftank.ca/data/images1/p5265517.jpg

That's a lineaged, cherry-picked coral. I'm working with a piece of crap Bali Aquacultured. Let's compare apples to apples. Bet you I could turn that Ultimate Bonsai into something completely different with some tinkering. I'm not talking about simply getting great colors. I'm talking about getting enhanced or modified colors. It's a matter of perspective. For me, watching a coral get colorful (subjectively speaking) and grow is standard/boring. It's like buying an off-the-shelf computer -- it works just fine and will meet the needs and demands of 99% of the population. However, I'm the sort of guy who likes building his own computer with top shelf hardware (customizing his corals).

[albert_dao]

For the sake of the thread starter maybe you could list some of the additives that you've used that you credit your success to. That is after all what this thread was intended for.


No can do due to my previous affiliations. Let's be clear, I AM heavily biased myself.

[Myka]

There are lots of additives out there that do all sorts of things! No additives are needed (besides "the big three"), but there can be no argument that many additives can have quite a dramatic effect on the corals.

For someone looking to do some experimenting with additives I would suggest that if you have any nuisance algae that you stay away from any food-type additives like amino acids and dead phyto and zooplankton products as well as powdered foods. Broadcast feeding is probably not a good idea either. Iron and Iodine will also fuel algae. All of these products can have quite a profound effect on tanks where algae is not a problem, though there is a fine line between feeding the corals and polluting the tank. I would not suggest a person to feed their corals if they do not have a very strong nutrient export system.

For SPS, many of the ULNS methods are quite effective. LPS, Zoas/Palys, and softies generally do not like ULNS. ULNS can be achieved in many ways...usually via carbon dosing of one brand or another like ZeoVit, Fauna Marin, Prodibio, or vodka/sugar/vinegar dosing. As mentioned already, SPS will often benefit by the regular monitoring and addition of potassium to help with blues and purples. Imo, potassium dosing is part of "the big three" on my SPS system. It's like "the big four". :)

ZeoVit has some great products I have used like Sponge Power, Coral Vitalizer (this is food, so be careful), Coral Snow, and Spur2. I really like the Brightwell Aquatics and Fauna Marin lines too. I love the Prodibio BioDigest and BiOptim.

In the big picture though, I think the best things you can do for long-term success, good growth and great color are...

1) Have a good nutrient export system in place including a good quality skimmer.
2) Use good quality lights/light bulbs and change them regularly.
3) Keep up on regular waterchanges making sure to keep all areas of the system clean.
4) Keep parameters at acceptable levels and keep them stable (calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, phosphate, and nitrate).

the stuff from the ulns looks like its working hard to get even a bit of color while the stuff in my tank is vibrant(not talking about sps too eary in the game for me to tell with sps) ...i thought it was suppose to be the other way around??

ULNS is for SPS. In the wild, SPS come from ULN waters. Zoas/Palys, softies, and LPS come from water with more nutrients and therefore prefer those conditions.

[spit.fire]

you wanna talk about old school? I'm still running metal halides :lol: I know, some of you young pups are probably like, WTF is a metal halide?!

Anyway, further on the topic of additives. I myself have steered away from anything that I didn't know what it did for the tank. A lot of bottles have very vague descriptions of their purpose and sometimes contents even.

That's nothing, the lfs out here still runs under gavel filters in all his fresh and salt tanks