Chemicals

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by kien

There are lots of people who use these additives in their reef with great success and there are lots of people who do not use these additives in their reefs with great success :-). Thus you will get opinions from both sides.

Only you can decide what camp you want to join. Team Jacob or team Edward? :-)

If you are just starting out I personally would not even think about these additives yet. Start with the basics, salt and water. That's all the fish really need. When you are ready for corals then evaluate their needs on a species by species basis as they are all very different in their requirments.

Every home has water, so to answer your original question the only thing you really need to stock up on at the moment is salt :-D

I slightly disagree with you brother.....I think if we all payed a little closer attention to the big three (Ca, Mg and DKH) sooner in the tanks life, the tank will mature and settle in alot better...If the tank is cycling and brand new, ya, dont worry to much about it......but when you start adding corals, pick up those test kits and get used to the idea of testing and dosing...its gonna happen sooner or later so you might as well embrace and encourage the monitoring and adjusting of those parameters

Originally Posted by RIPTANK

This might be a stupid question but as a new reefer myself, I have purchased all them fancy bottles of chemicals needed in reef keeping. My concern is that won't the protein skimmer and carbon just remove most of the chemicals anyways before the corals can absorb them???

Do you guys keep the protein skimmer and canister filters running when you dose your tanks?

BTW: Thanks kien for the Calcium and Alk tutorials! Love the threads!

Yes, your skimmer will skim out some of these products.....exactly why you need to add them.....my skimmer runs 24/7 regardless of when I dose.....