Most important additive?

[lazarus]

I suspect many of the additives sold by LFS are useless, but my corals obviously need some help. My fish are healthy, my water specs appear fine, my pc lighting is ample, but my corals dont grow or die slowly. I bought a calcium kit and those levels are fine as well.
is there a single additive you would recommend to boost coral vitality?

 

[bpd]

Originally Posted by LAZARUS
I suspect many of the additives sold by LFS are useless, but my corals obviously need some help. My fish are healthy, my water specs appear fine, my pc lighting is ample, but my corals dont grow or die slowly. I bought a calcium kit and those levels are fine as well.
is there a single additive you would recommend to boost coral vitality?

PC lighting? what kind of corals are you talking about?

 

[nano reefer]

i think he means chemicals you add...
calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium are all a must. If you are going to use trace elements dont just do one of those 3. Either all 3 or nothing, because you would be wasting money.

 

[patandlace]

What exactly are your water specs? Do you test for Alk? What size tank and how many watts are the PC lights? And what kind of corals? How much water flow do you have?

 

[lazarus]

sorry - good question...my zoos and sponge appear to be doing OK
my frogspawn died a slow death. my GPS also died. and a mushroom. even my feather dusters (OK not a coral) dont survive. I lost something else that looks like flowing fingers but i cannot identify it even after searching all corals offered by this site.

 

[lazarus]

i think the calcium, magnesium and alk comment answers my questions...thanks
sorry to be so vague on the other parameters but i dont know them offhand...other than they are all within spec!
so magnesium is an additive?

 

[patandlace]

You need to test your calcium, Alk and mag before adding. You only need to dose if these levels are off.

 

[bpd]

flowing fingers = a leather of some sort?
did that die first?

 

[lazarus]

i had been testing alk and calcium and both were within spec....i had not tested for magnesium but will do that now.
yes i think the flowing fingers were a type of leather, but still had not seen it on this site before. it died most recently after a water change. i think that shocked it....but again the fish are doing great

 

[sac10918]

Maybe check your nitrates
If those are high, your fish maybe healthy but corals don't like it...

 

[bonita69]

can you list numbers vs spec.
Also water, if using tap do you add anything to it?
Lights how strong? watts? Can you give a pic of your tank, maybe we can see something your overlooking.
water temp?
Flow?
Placement of the corals that die?

 

[tinmanny]

You should test for all your peramiters and You should never just randomly add chemicals. Going higher than advised is often worse than lower and you can throw the hole tank off by setting off an imbalance and recovering is much harder just add what you know it needs by testing adding one chem can cause an imbalance among other chemicals
so test post for all t see and read
If you have plants dieing then you should test phosphates will have an adverse affect on all of the inhabitants of your tank some a lot more than others
good luck

 

[acrylic51]

Good quality water and a good salt mix.

 

[perfectdark]

IMO you first need to address your lighting... Just a guess but if your zoa's are fairing well and you lost your frogspawn and GSP I am guessing its a lighting issue as these 2 corals require more intense lighting. You said PC Lighting please post what bulb types you are using, how many watts and what your tank size is.
Then you need to know what "all in spec" is. 1.021 salinity is within range for a SW tank however its low for a reef. But depending on what your source is they may be telling you this is ok.

 

[dennis210]

Hey you are probabably tired of hearing it - but knowing the parameters are a must. "Single most important addative" question is a no brainer to me! Water ghanges! On a regular basis this will bump up your trace elements every time you perform one. Calcium and alkalinity will both be "consumed" by your tank and need to be replaced at least weekly. Day to day biological functions within your tank want to make the water more acidic (lower pH), your levels of both alk and ca will try to prevent this. They "buffer" the water against changing. There is a wonderful thread in the archives relating how pH, ca, alk; are all tied together and dependant upon one another. That is the reason so many answer this thread wanting to know parameters not "within spec".
Within your thread you mention a "leather" died first; could it have been one called "devils hand"? If so they are normally toxic to most sps corals but if it died and released everything into tank this could be very toxic.
Lighting - you mentioned power compacts which may or may not be okay for the corals you have. Most smaller tanks forget volume - think depth of water, will be fine with said lighting, if your tank is over 20" deep there may not be enough punch to penetrate.
Everything goes back to knowing what your system contains. Skimmer, sump system, filtration, lighting, flow rates, and parameters like - temp, pH, amn, nitrite, nitrate, calcium, and alk at least.
Good luck and when you need helps these boards can be very useful as can the archives within them!