Ultra Clam review thread

[Skimmerking]

Well im on my 3 batch of food with the Ultra clams and the ultra min S mixed feeding 2 times per day or 3 depending if Im not at work...

All is going great so far. the polyps are getting there, Im seeing a bit of Red turf algae coming back from the 120 where i had it bad... I hope when i get the other stuff that Mike is sending me to trial that the bacterica will eat away the big phosphates that i have I measured and my
PO 4 was like .01 so not to much but enough I guess ....

looking forward to trying out the new trial stuff....

[Aqua-Digital]

Cut back to feeding once a day and also stop the extra MinS in the system, the corals can take what is already mixed in with the Clam mixture.

Too much feeding can lead to a build up of nutrients, the Ultra Bak I am sending will build up your bacteria levels to burn this off.

I assume you are doing maintenance water changes

Other products being sent tomorrow - 24 hours snow storm here today!

[Skimmerking]

yes i have 150 total gal and i do 5 gal every Sun

[Aqua-Digital]

Fauna recommend for any system 10% a week or 25% every two weeks. this is irrelvant if you are using their products or not

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by Aqua-Digital

10%

ok then its 10 per week that i will start then starting this Sat morning with my Daughter.

[Aqua-Digital]

This will help reduce your PO4.

Red turf algea reacts to raises in PO4 so before you do your water change on Saturday do another PO4 heat test. Then next week you will have the Bak and can start reducing those nasty nutrients.

[Skimmerking]

Getting some Turf algae now on the rocks, Mike at Aqua digital told me that PO 4 will cause Red Turf then so once i get the new Trial stuff like BAK and other stuff I will start to dose that that has been stated to me and ease off on the Min S to 1 ml to allow the BAK to eat away at the PO4 the little that i have i guess is making a huge mess in my tank........

so Doing is been put on hold for the separate Ultra min S and i will be just feeding 1 time per day with the clam food and Ultra Min S added to mix the food.

[Aqua-Digital]

Yep.

The clam food is fine you can carry on, i was not aware you were feeding up to 3 times a day, so apologies for not picking that up and please carry on normal dosing once a day.

So Combine the O/D on the food with any extra Min-S added to the system and you will raise your nutrients. The first thing that will transpire will be Algea, namely those associated with PO4 deposits.

As the PO4 heat test showed you did have a level to start with so the seed was there. So to bring this back down you are being given Ultra Bak

Argh are you see where this is going now

Basically you have the building blocks of an low nutrient system

A Low nutrient system is

1. A bacteria carrier (zeo lite rock)
2. A high bacterial food (Ultra Bak)
3 Replacment positive nutrients (Ultra Min S)

Now that does not mean you have to have the full works but you can play with key ingredients in the Fauna Marin Ultra Lith system to meet the needs of your tank, in your case a slight high nutrient level that can be brought in check just by using Ultra Bak!

I am pleased to see where this review is expanding, I think there is a lot to learn from this. So far we have seen how amazingly well Ultra clam works (lets brush over the over feeding for a minute ) and we have seen how well a system reacts to just one element of the fauna Ultra Lith system, that being Min-S. Now everyone can see how Ultra bak can be used to bring slight algea issues back under control.

lets not detract too far from the main review point, that being the ultra Clam, but I do think this is a damn good evaluation of how versatile the Fauna range really is

[Skimmerking]

I'm curious thou I have been seeing that soem people out there are saying that they do a 25% water change on there tanks either weekly or semi monthly and they are using the Fauna Marin supplies. but when you look at that when you are doing 25% of your system worht in NSW wouldnt using the Fauna not really matter. your getting all the proper supplements from NSW then why would you be using the Fauna Marin, if you are taking the PO4 and the NO2,3 out with the water changes

[Aqua-Digital]

Good question and worthy of a lengthy explanation

Water changes - On any system you should be doing a minimum of 10% a week so on a 150Gallon tank you should be changing 15 gallons weekly, however a lot of people do 25% changes or some even do a lot less.

Why water changes with Low Nutrient Systems - Well as the question highlights "low Nutrient" so to help in the nutrient reduction, more so when first starting with the system, water changes are the best way of reducing free radicals (water bound nutrients), but it does not remove structural bound nutrients as will be explained below.

Why not just do large water changes instead of LNS - Simply put, all you are doing by changing the water is removing the bad nutrients that have been picked up and bound into the water. However 90% of all nutrients are soaked into the fauna and scaping of your system, such as rock, sand (biggest culprit) and even glass, pipes pumps etc etc.

So what LN systems do is build up huge levels of positive bacterias to"EAT" away the nutrients held in the systems structure, this then eliminates the bad nutrients at source.

So by adding the Ultra Bak you are putting a very powerful bacterial food into the system that will literally burn off the source of pollutions. This is where the Zeo Lite rock comes in as it creates a very large porous home for these bacteria to live in and as such you create a far great stable area for the baceria to continually thrive.

Simply put -

Water changes just remove the result of the high nutrients
LNS removes the source of the Nutrients.

Back to water changes - Depending on the system you are using with fauna depends very much so on the water changes you do. If using the balling method to stop the risk of ionic imbalance 10% water changes weekly are recommended unless you add mineral salts. In regards to Ultra Lith systems, once the system is mature, you only need to do the 10% weekly water changes that are required in any set up, this is just to "freshen up" the water as new salt puts back in a lot of goodness.

The other thing as in your case, many of fauna's foods are very powerful and as proven work extremely well, but with all foods you can produce a nutrient sink in the water IF you over feed ( ), this is what algea feeds off of, so if you over feed then your nutrients rise and by doing the water changes removes to the water bound nutrients BUT not the structural bound ones and as highlighted this is where the fauna LNS range comes into play.

And this is what is so attractive with using the fauna system, it is made up of parts that you can use as you so choose, you can use the full Lith System for optimal stability OR in your case pick and choose the parts that will help your system, in this case the Bak.

Everyone can benefit from fauna, you dont have to be an LNS nut to use it, if you want to rid your tank of structurally bound nutrients then employ a dosing regime of Ultra Bak, and then replace the bad guys with Ultra min-S

So what is Ultra Bak? - It is not a bacterial additive, but a specific VERY powerful bacterial food, Bak is so strong it will boost your tanks own bacterial count immensly all on its own and as such is best deployed gradually. If you stop using it after a period of time your system will reduce down to its pre Bak dosing levels so it is not a product you have to always use once started, however to achieve the best result in nutrients for your system a background level is very beneficial, but always remember to add MinS as well so you do not starve your system of ALL nutrients.

So What is Min-S? - Min-S is a specific amino acid nutrient, it has been developed to put into the system only positive nutrients. The product is packed full of all the food building blocks that corals and clams etc need to thrive. On regular use you will see a massive difference to your corals, in basic colour and growth, and in animals such as clams the colour will be enhanced significantly.

Remember all these products are natural so you are only putting into your system what is found naturally in the oceans

Hope that explains everything