MB7 and Vodka users....

[Alex T.]

I wanted to know if any of you noticed that after you reached ULNS you were actually pulling out less skimmate than normal after dosing MB7 and Vodka.

Is this status quo for reaching ULNS? Please share your experiences.....


Thanks.

 

[Alex T.]

Bump

 

[allsps40]

I have no reached ULNS yet but from what I have read your skimmer should continue to perform well. Are you feeding like crazy now that you have reached ULNS?? If not you have to.

 

[Alex T.]

Oh yeah...I feed. Six cubes of frozen (5 Mysis, 2 Bloodworms) plus pellet food. It's just that my skimmer is so strong that it has periods of severe foaming where it can fill the collection cup in 4 hours and then nothing until I feed again. My fish are plump and happy, but skimmate appears much more "clean" than it use to. No more sludge or dark brown skimmate no matter how dry I choose to skim.

 

[Alex T.]

Oh...forgot. I know in the above post it seems like I can't add, but I consider 2 small cubes of Bloodworms equal to one cube of mysis that I feed.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Maybe the oils from your food is keeping your skimmer from working at its peak capacity.

 

[allsps40]

I was thinking the same thing, my skimmer stops skimming after I feed. Or you could have an over sized skimmer.

 

[Alex T.]

Thanks everybody. Don't get me wrong...my ETSS 900 skims like a champ. It's just that the skim mate has nowhere near the color or "sludge" that it use to. It's much more light in color now than when I first started dosing vodka and MB7. The reason I have so many fish in this system is so I can feed more and get the skimmer to run. When I tried to keep the tank stocked with a moderate level of fish, my corals actually went pale. Four to six cubes a day seems to be my sweet spot for polyp extension and rich colors in my SPS. Even with a heavy fish load my nitrates never climbed above 1 ppm. I love running a large external skimmer like my ETSS for its' ability to strip the tank of anything that may have been considered overfeeding. At first I thought that my light corals and less polyp extension was phosphate, but couldn't believe how much worse they got when I lowered the feeding. When I actually increased it beyond what I was feeding, the results seemed to take a turn for the better and the skimmer started pulling a less disgusting froth.

I'm fairly certain I reached ULNS. Whatever its' true definition is I don't know. I have no measureable nitrate or phosphate, my refugium had to be taken offline because I could not keep chaetomorpha alive, and I've even brought my bi-weekly water change of 25 gallons down to 15. I love feeding the fish what they really need to stay plump, so therefore I've never used Amino Acids at all.

 

[jbanks]

If your corals look good, than I would think job.. I wouldn't worry about the color of your skimmate too much as long as your readings are good... My tank goes through cycles of light and dark skimmate as well without changing anything..