Long term success without carbon dosing

[Son Of Skyline]

Originally Posted by kien

Out of curiosity, when does a fad become mainstream? I thought carbon dosing has been around for a while now? Is there a time limit?

Yes there is. 8 years 6 months (102 months). That is the fad to mainstream cutoff. Some say only 96 months, but that's a whole other argument.


My point was to the OP. You absolutely dont need carbon dosing for long term success. Your tank can and will be fine without it if that's the route you choose to take.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Son Of Skyline

You're right. The colour change in a coral could mean any number of things, good and bad. I know my tank and its inhabitants well though, and I know the difference between a "good" response and a "stress" response. This was a stress response. In all my years of reef keeping, carbon dosing is new, and IMO a fad. People never had a problem keeping sps before carbon dosing.

You're right, and I wasn't in any way suggesting you didn't know what was going on in your own tank, I was just trying to point out that there are plenty of carbon dosed tanks that flourish, but that exhibit the same symptoms you described. If someone were to go down that path (or any extreme nutrient reduction path), I wouldn't want them to think that corals lightening up and algae growth rates declining were necessarily a sign of a problem.

As for carbon dosing and it's place in the hobby, I would argue that not even 30 years ago, keeping SPS alive at all was a wet dream for most people who kept salt water tanks. I would argue further that widespread 'success' (ie, good colour and growth) with SPS corals didn't start to leave the hands of the most dedicated 'expert' reefers until the late 90s. Our knowledge of corals and how to keep them has improved dramatically in a relatively short period of time, so there's not enough of a history keeping them successfully with any one method to call a newer method a fad I think. I've been reading about carbon dosing in some form or another for the 4 years that I've been interested in the hobby, and I'm pretty sure some of the threads I researched back in the beginning were a couple of years old, so relative to the history of SPS keeping, it's actually been around for a pretty long time. Biopelletes are more recent, but they're born out the shared experiential knowledge of forum users testing out their own home-made carbon dosing regiments for years prior. It obviously works, but it's not the only way to do it and it produces a specific result that ultimately comes down to a matter of taste I think. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

But back to the original point of this thread - I still think that if you're going to do them, your best results will be if you do them from the start and let the system evolve that way. You don't have to use them, but they change the equation pretty significantly when they start to work, and if one thing about corals can be agreed on universally, it's that they do better when their environment is stable.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Son Of Skyline

My point was to the OP. You absolutely dont need carbon dosing for long term success. Your tank can and will be fine without it if that's the route you choose to take.

Agreed 100%. The corals don't give two whits how you keep nutrients within their acceptable range. Just that you do. The method doesn't matter, it's the result.

[reeferfulton]

great responses everyone , thanks very much . It really nice to have people give your there experiences and opinions .

I think i will be setting up the pellets asap , I am going to introduce them at an even slower pace then normal cautioned.

thanks again .

[Son Of Skyline]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

Agreed 100%. The corals don't give two whits how you keep nutrients within their acceptable range. Just that you do. The method doesn't matter, it's the result.

Also agree Doesn't matter how you do it, as long as you are consistent with it.