It's actually very effective for systems with high cyano/GHA issues. You buggers are still missing the big picture. So many have algae/cyano issues yet their acros are pale and washed out and tests come back as zero or very low on phos and nitrates. If you don't correct it you will see the acros eventually begin to brown out more and more as the acros rely more and more on zoa for nutrition which results in the zoa over populating and the acro being annoyed further by the excess hydrogen peroxide now being produced and so they eventually expel the zoa and go bye byes.....
Cyano and algae infested systems are more ULN than many realise. The system as a whole is nutrient rich and that's what your eyes see so you either cut back food trying to starve it out or ignore the algae/cyano and deal with the ULN readings you're getting and feed aminos and such trying to 'color up' the acros. Trouble is the cyano and or algae love that kinda concentrated liquid fertiliser so they strip it during daylight and when the acros come to the dinner table each night the plate is pretty empty.......
The system is nutrient rich but the water is being maintained as ULN by the algae/cyano. You don't have to use skimmate, as long as you dose the tank after lights out AND it is with something you're very confident the acros will actually gain nutrition from AND you're confident you can strip most of it out before the lights come on then you should feel confident that what you're doing is beneficial to the acros and won't make your poopy looking acros look even worse. If i was confident the vast majority of reef roids was removed each night i would dose it every night in larger amounts. It doesn't have to be roids, you guys have lots of good stuff i cant get like chilli etc and as long as it's a good product it will do the same thing.
I know it isn't because i've seen cyano thrive when i tried doing it a while back and guess what, the acros also lost their shine as the acros began taking on more zoa to compensate for the very aggressive stripping that cyano seems capable of.
During lights on my display is almost devoid of algae or anything else and looks very barren to me, yet at night there are literally hundreds and hundreds of snails up to 1/2" in size on the glass, bottom and all over the rocks. I tested the water this morning and phos using the Elos high res phos kit came up 0.02 and Salifert nitrate was almost undetectable. Looking sideways through the vial with a white card behind it i saw a very faint hint of pink, prob somewhere between zero and 2. The water is ULN and the display looks the same but i can keep a large population of snails thriving and breeding whilst seeing no algae. The only place i see any algae is on the front grid of the pumps because that's the only place the snails can't graze without being blown 3 ft across the tank. Your pumps are just as important as a visual indicator as watching the rate of algae growth on your front glass when you rely almost entirely on visual indicators for your SPS keeping.
Snails are terrific for your SPS tank because as long as you're somewhere close to getting your water right they will self regulate their numbers to deal with and imbalance to a great extent. As you gain more confidence keeping SPS you feed more and the snails breed more to mow your tank lawn.
Sorry for the ramble lol, got carried away again but when i write this stuff i mean 'in my opinion' a lot but i can't be stuffed writing it all over the place. My whole journal is a IMO and i talk about a lot of obvious stuff most of you already know but newer guys and gals usually struggle for a time to get their head around just how many different things are going on in their tanks and putting it the way i do makes it easier to get your head around than just throwing out numbers which doesn't help much if you have no real clue why changing this has suddenly resulted in more of that lol.
I joke around way too much but i will never suggest ideas or methods to you guys that would hurt your tanks. I just ramble so you think a bit more about your filtration and how to achieve the balance you want at the spot you want to keep it with the least amount of acro keeping stress.
music to my ears haha I truly appreciate it though! They're always some of my favourite frags!!
