Ben,
I've been meaning to post some before/after pics for some time now and will try to within the next couple of days. Pat asked me for some full tank shots back on March 16 when I posted some close-up pics and it took me until April 3 to do so
My before/afters may not be so great, but I'll go through the horde of pics I've taken over the past 3 months and sort the coral frags out then by date time stamp.
But all-in-all the PE is great so go for it and buy buy buy!!!
j/k
I can honestly tell you that I have witnessed some of my corals begin to show color at the tips when they never showed color before, except brown. The colors began to show after using prodibio, 24/7 carbon, and weekly WC in place of monthly.
One frag, completely brown with no apparent PE, has been slowly losing it's tissue from the base up starting sometime in Feb. As of 2 weeks ago, it now appears the tissue loss has halted and I noticed PE. The coloration of the coral right now is tri-color, which I have never witnessed from this frag.
Another frag, all brown, has produced a baby blue extended tip what seemed like overnight (more like going from not having this type of a tip ...sorry for the lack of proper terms... and no blue color displayed to growing a baby blue tip in about 2 weeks).
Yet, another frag, where the entire mother colony bleached last year and this was the only part I was able to salvage, has been extremely light in color, yellow/whitish. It's original color was an orange pigment with deep blue tips. Since last year, I thought it would not make it. Now with dosing prodibio, it began PE for the first time since the incident and very (very) quickly began slowing a hint of blue on some of the tips. Within 4 weeks of dosing Prodi, most all tips have some deep blue coloring as what it looked like before, but the base pigment is still lighter than originally. The frag is looking very healthy for the first time since last year.
I realize everyone's tank is different and some may not experience the same effect and/or within the same amount of time that passes. It all depends on what your tank's conditions are already at and how "happy" your corals are before prodi.
I am seeing a lot of the same effects as Mike reported below...
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7110389#post7110389 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mikeatjac
Ben,
I use bioclean and booster.
I am on the start of my third week. Yes I am getting better PE durning the day.
I know of two corals off hand that showed PE about 10% of the month. Now I would say I notice it daily from both corals and am surprised at how much one of them extends compared to before. Sorry I keep bringing PE up, but this is an effect that I've noticed since starting prodi.
To answer your question. My cheato has stopped gowing. The fibers are getting thinner.
My cheato has not died off, but has stopped growing as well. I check it daily to see if it needs to be removed before releasing it's uptake. I feed my tank heavily and think some of the effect of prodi may be slower on my tank than some who may already be at a lower nutrient level.
My Skimmer production the first 10 days was better than normal but now is production has fallen off.
More skimmate was produced than normal and it appeared darker after a few days to 1 week of starting prodi. As a matter of fact durning this time I had an episode where the skimmer went a little crazy and sent about 5 - 8 gals of SW to the collection cup's drain while I was at work, which was topped off with fresh RO/DI. This settled down after the top-off reservoir became empty and the tank's evap brought the sump/skimmer water level waaay down!
As Mike experienced, my skimmer is not producing as much skimmate anymore. I kept checking it to make sure everything was "tweaked" correctly because I was concerned about the decline for a while. I have to keep reminding myself each day as I look at it and am surprised that it is not doing much.
I should be receiving CV today.
I will begin dosing CV and AAHC too. I don't think Prodi alone can get the corals where we "want them" as far as growth and coloration is concerned, but IMO prodi is a key component to help us achieve this.
