Quote:
Originally Posted by reeferfulton
Need some help here .
I have had my tank setup now for 2 months . I have had 5 fish in there now for about 2 weeks .
My nitrates with (elos kit) have been undetectable and still measuring .02 phosphates with the hanna checker.
I have purchased a full setup to run Biopellets , and also have a reactor and GFO on standby as well.
My questions are .
1.IF you Do carbon dose ( vodka , vinegar , biopellets ) when did you start and why ? nitrates where creeping up on you ?
2. Anyone running a lps/sps reef with fish medium stocked long term without any sort of carbon dosing . ? If so what levels of Nitrate are you happy with
feedback would be great .
Seems from the reading I do I am finding alot of people are running biopellets without really knowing why .Thus i am asking what people are doing
thanks
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If your tank is new it is safe to start bio-pellets.
Any dosing requires testing, therefore you
might get tired of the routine may
not sound like a big deal now but eventually you may get sick of the dosing and testing.
I have had a few reef tanks since 1998 and never liked dosing just for that reason.
I always had a Calcium reactor (set it and forget it).
My present tank is almost 8 years old now SPS mostly some LPS and softies.
Tried dosing but for very short period to see any benefit. so i can say i have never fully implemented dosing.
I did tryed pellets on 4 years old SPS reef followed the proper regime to the "T" and still lost more then $450 worth of my best SPS.
So i did
not have very good experience with bio pellets and would not recommend then on an established tank.
However on the new tank like yours it would be a lot less risky to try.
My tank is over stocked, over fed and over skimmed.
I have 1 very large (8" French Angel) , 2 large fish (Moorish Idol and Hippo Tang), two small Percula Clowns , one juvenile Coris Wrass and two tiny yellow gobies.
I grossly overfeed my 65 gal+ sump tank (two three cubes some times 4 per day plus flakes, cyclopeeze and lots of pellets) but over-skimm as well and it seems to be in very good balance. Bare bottom with lots of live rock in the display tank and sump as well.
Good luck with your new tank