1st time SPS keeper and KZ questions

[atitagain]

Hello all,

I have a 30G jbj all-in-one. The mechanical/chemical filtering system consist of tunze 9004 skimmer, CAD lights bio-pellet reactor with aqua-maxx pellets, In-tank media basket with purigen, and seachem BLUE. I have 1.5-2 inch live sand bed and roughly 30# rock. Lighting is Kessil A160we set at 65% max intensity on the controller. It ramps up and down for a total of 12 hrs with a total of about 5-6 hours of intense lighting. I perform 10% weekly water changes with red sea coral pro.

My parameters are/have been stable with mixed test kits from HANNA/Salifert.
PH 8.0-8.2
DKH 9.5
Cal 420
nitrate 0 =undetectable
phos 0 = undetectable of HANNA

Tanks has mostly mixed LPS with a few shrooms, palys and zoas. I recently added a couple frags of SPS: birdnest, montipora...a few plating, encrusting and digitata.

finally here is my question (since tank and param's are always asked)

I currently use KZ and have since my 1st corals went in. I use coral vitalizer, phols, sponge power, and LPS. I have good health and good color in all my corals in the tank. Two weeks ago I added my first SPS which was the Green birdsnest and it is doing great so far (knocking on wood) I recently added frags of montipora consisting of pink/yellow plating, seasons greeting, Green Spongodes and bright pink digitata. I would consider my system ULNS even though I don't use the zeovit system. I have two clowns (bullethole and black ice) that feed directly from a turkey baster so not a whole lot of extra food floating around. Should I add a KZ amino acid and zeofood 7 to my KZ supplementation to ensure the SPS has its requirements meet or stay the course with the current KZ products that I use.

I like to keep the product lines the same with KZ and I am not interested in doing oyster feast, reef roids etc. From my understanding thus far I can care for all my coral needs with KZ.

thanks for the help in advance

 

[Eastone]

I'd definitely add amino acids, the acceleration in growth is well worth it, I believe zeofood 7 is a combination of carbon source and amino acids and has been since superseded. I'd also suggest zeobak to augment the biopellets and coral snow if you want to just stick to KZ, perhaps k and b balance if you want to flesh out further but these aren't necessary at this stage.

 

[atitagain]

does anyone know if the amino acid is different in the LPS and straight amino acid KZ? LPS does have amino acids?

 

[Peter Eichler]

Ok, I've got to ask... Why do you think you need to add all this "stuff" and what leads you to believe it will help your tank?

 

[atitagain]

i am not interested in adding "all" this stuff/their product line. I am interested in ensuring i am giving the corals the nutrients they need to thrive not just survive. Just like I am very conscious about what i feed my dogs and what goes into my own body so I perform to my max. I am interested in trying to replicate nutrients in my water column that is as close as possible to the ocean.

 

[kevin_e]

I would add a few more fish and feed them a fewctines a day, while ditching the biopellets, purigen, chemipure and additives. I used to rub similar products and ran into nothing but problems, it just led to more maintenance and more things to go wrong. Skimmer, chaeto and mysis, that's it (well, calcium chloride and soda ash too)

But to your question, yes, I woukd. When I ranvsimikar products, I was starving my coral. They were very pale at at times, bleached during media changes.

I'm sure those products work well, but why pay more and maintain more while potentially opening yourself up to more issues?

 

[lonzoencho]

I wouldn't recommend Purigen for ULN tanks. Pieces tend to pale over time in my experience.

 

[Peter Eichler]

i am not interested in adding "all" this stuff/their product line. I am interested in ensuring i am giving the corals the nutrients they need to thrive not just survive. Just like I am very conscious about what i feed my dogs and what goes into my own body so I perform to my max. I am interested in trying to replicate nutrients in my water column that is as close as possible to the ocean.

If that's the case then stop dosing amino acids and most if not all of the other KZ stuff. There isn't some abundance of amino acids floating around in the ocean. Corals are quite capable of synthesizing their own amino acids and there's nothing scientific to support a need for them to be dosed. I'd speculate that most people that see benefits from their use have very low nutrient levels from carbon dosing or other reasons and the amino acids are simply acting as a source of nitrogen. I have at least anecdotal evidence to back this up. my corals reacted almost exactly the same way to dosing nitrates as they did amino acids after periods of being pale from what I believe to be "nutrients" being too low.

The way you're keeping this tank is quite far away from the natural environment on a reef. Carbon dosing/bio-pellets are totally unnatural and stimulates a process that would rarely to never take place in nature. things like chemipure are totally superfluous and in some part worthless. It has DI resin that doesn't even work in saltwater...

You seem to want what is best for your inhabitants, and that's a great thing overall, but sometimes it gets us in trouble and can make people feel pressured to buy things they don't need or that can even be harmful if not fully understood.

I hope you don't take offense, justgiving you another perspective that maybe it's time to do less rather than do more...