Dynamite's 90g Tank Thread and Prodibio review.
 

So I neglected my tank cuz I travelled twice this year for a month and well I came back to a disaster, algae everywhere, diatoms and high nitrates, I've been trying to reduce the nitrates through water changes and vodka dosing but it didn't do much for me :sad: I want to get my tank back in track and keep it as nice as it was before I left, with 0 nitrates and good parameters.. So I'll start to dose Prodibio starting today.

Tank Specs:

90g soon to be reef (SPS)
40g Sump
SWC 160 cone skimmer
Vortech mp40 and vortech mp20

Inhabitants:

1 Yellow Tang
1 Cherub Angel
1 False perc
1 Black clownfish
1 Yashia Goby and Shrimp
1 Fighting Conch

I'll Start dosing 1 ampule of Biotim and 1 of Biodigest once a week for 4 weeks and then I'll change the dose.

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Today I did a 30% Water Change, I vacuumed the sand and dosed 1 ampoule of Biotim and 1 ampoule of Biodigest and I'll keep up with the same dose for 4 weeks until I see my levels of Nitrates drop.

I'll post my parameters when I come back from work.
Last time I checked my Nitrates were 20/25ppm and my Phosphates 0.03ppm (Hanna Metter).

I'll turn on my skimmer in 15m :mrgreen:

Prodibio is a good system but takes a very long time to start seeing good results... in the area of 2-6 months depending on parameters when you started. Took more then 3 to see any kind of changes in my tank, then it crashed lol, none related

I know :mrgreen: That's why I'm giving it a try, after reading about all the ULNS I thought this was my best bet, plus dosing once a week an ampule seems easy and fair enough :) I'm not expecting to see drastic changes in a month, I'll give it time.
BTW.. What were your parameters when you started with Prodibio?

So I just checked my water parameters (after a 30% water change)

Nitrates 10-15ppm (Some how they're lower than last time I checked while I was dosing vodka and It's been more than a month since last time I dosed)

Phosphates 0.05ppm (Hanna Meter, they raised a little bit :neutral: previously 0.03ppm)

*After dosing one ampule of Biodigest and one of Biotim the water got clear really fast like within 30m :mrgreen: After a water change it usually takes longer.
*I turned the skimmer off for half an hour after dosing and now I have an inch of dark skimmate :mrgreen:

Now I don't know if I should do another 30% water change tomorrow or should I wait till next week?

Today I did a 15% Water change while I cleaned my sump.
Nitrates are at 25ppm.
I also added a CUC.

1 fighting conch
4 Turbo Snails
4 Babylon Snails
2 Top Crown Snails
10 Hermits.

Should I increase my CUC?

Thursday: I'll do a 30% Water change and add one ampule of Biodigest and one of Biotim.

*I read about the disadvantages or carbon.. So I was thinking maybe I could just run my phosban reactor for 2h every 3 days? Any input? :mrgreen:

pull out those hermits - they kill more snails than do any good.

add;

20 ceriths (or 40 dwarf ceriths) - keeps glass/rock clean
20 turbos - keeps glass/rock clean
20 narisuss - keep sand bed clean.

pretty much everyone runs carbon though very few go through HLLE disease (i think you are referring the recent study on this correlation.)

if you are not keen on running ti 24/7 - maybe run it only for a few days before you do a water change.

Yupp, I think that's what I'll do.. I saw 2 of them attacking one of my biggest snail :neutral: Thanks for the suggestion!

Yes, I was referring to that recent study I just don't want to take any chances :mrgreen:

*Little update*

I've got a skinny Yellow Tang a few months ago and I keep trying to get him fat but it doesn't seem to work.. All my fish are literally obese but somehow my Yellow Tang won't gain any weight :cry:

While I was feeding them today I realized that my Yellow Tang has Black Black Ich for the second time and it's just weird cuz there's no stress in the tank, all my other fish look amazing and the water parameters are good but the nitrates (20ppm), so I'm guessing it's because he's underweight :cry: I'm gonna buy a veggie clip on Friday and I hope it helps him to get some weight.

I also don't feel like destroying my tank to threat him, will a cleaner wrasse and cleaner shrimp do the trick?

Thanks!

I personally find that conches do a way better job of sand cleaning than Nassarius snails ever do and you don't need that many.