most important supplement for coral?

[squishifishi]

I wasn't planning on dosing any supplements, but now, I am beginning to understand that this is an improtant part of reef keeping. My tiny reef is mostly softies, with lps corals too. So, hypothetically, if I could only dose ONE supplement...which should it be? what is most important to the general health of corals?
what would you reccomend I really use in my pico reef? thanks!

 

[accordsirh22]

seachems aquavitro fuel is wonderful in my book. its an amino acid and vitamin supplement

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

it's very important to define what you mean by "supplement"

it's very important to define what you mean by "supplement"

There are major and minor constituents of seawater that get depleted by corals and need to be supplemented and then there are other things (for lack of a better word!)
Calcifying organisms (ie: growing corals) deplete calcium, alkalinity and magnesium. These are major elements of saltwater and you MUST maintain their proper levels if you are to be successful with living corals.

<----For my reef aquarium I concern myself with levels of calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, phophates, nitrates.

"Vitamins" and such are a waste of money and you can spend hundreds of dollars on useless "snake oils".
A good rule is : if you don't test for it don't dose it.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

what is most important to the general health of corals? what would you reccomend I really use in my pico reef? thanks!

feed good quality foods and PROPERLY perform regular partial water changes. Monitor SG, Ca, alkalinty, Mg and temp.

 

[squishifishi]

I'm not actually quite sure what that means! but ya know when you look at liveaquaria corals, in the quick stats it says SUPPLEMENTS:
yeah...those things I guess, or some sort of all-in-one to promote coral health and growth.
I just feed my corals mysis shrimp...do they want something more?
thanks!

 

[Sk8r]

There are 3. If you keep softie coral, it will be easy to keep them in balance with water changes and weekly tests for calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium. If you are keeping stony, you need dkh buffer (alkalinity), with test, calcium, with test, and magnesium, with test; and there are shortcuts to supplement same via your regular topoff, because stony coral eats calcium at a very fast rate.

Most corals eat light. Softies and some stonies eat food that fish might eat. More stonies eat fine particulate. SPS stonies mostly eat light. Their 'skin' contains bacteria (zooxanthellae) that convert light to sugars.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

, or some sort of all-in-one to promote coral health and growth

there is no "all in one supplement". A water change would be the closest thing to an "all in one supplement".

 

[klwheat]

I guess the closest thing I've used to an all-in-one supplement is Kalk. Helps maintain alk and calcium. If I could only add one thing, it would be kalk in my ATO

 

[Sk8r]

Absolutely. I get great lps growth, but all I do is test periodically, supplement magnesium when it needs it, add fresh water every week or so and add more kalk every few months (32 g reservoir)---food is just crushed dried krill with some treats for fish.

 

[billsreef]

Listen to Gary and Sk8tr. Also remember, when reading about "supplements" on a site selling said "supplements", they are trying to sell you those "supplements"

 

[jdhuyvetter]

How often do you do water changes? If you do enough, theoretically, you would never need supplements.

 

[mikecc67548]

A good rule is : if you don't test for it don't dose it.

3rd post in thread. No need to read further (but I yam)

 

[GreshamH]

Their 'skin' contains bacteria (zooxanthellae) that convert light to sugars.

Zooxanthellae is not bacteria but rather a dinoflagellate (phytoplankton).

 

[Dmorty217]

There are major and minor constituents of seawater that get depleted by corals and need to be supplemented and then there are other things (for lack of a better word!)
Calcifying organisms (ie: growing corals) deplete calcium, alkalinity and magnesium. These are major elements of saltwater and you MUST maintain their proper levels if you are to be successful with living corals.

<----For my reef aquarium I concern myself with levels of calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, phophates, nitrates.

"Vitamins" and such are a waste of money and you can spend hundreds of dollars on useless "snake oils".
A good rule is : if you don't test for it don't dose it.

+1 these are the most important and everything else will be resupplied with regular water changes

 

[SpartaReef]

How do you test for magnesium?

 

[AYGurgies]

With a test kit.

How do you test for magnesium?

 

[SpartaReef]

Well duh, but which one? My LFS doesn't carry it

 

[Kyle918]

Ok, we should start at step 1. Do you test your water for the 3 big ones, calcium, alk, and magnesium?? IF you don't, how do you even know if you need to dose anything?? Which brings me to another important point...don't even dose what you aren't testing for...else, how do you know you aren't dosing too little (wasting your time) or dosing too much (wasting your money and possibly causing more harm).

Also, do you make your own salt water?? If you do, read the package. They list all the suppliments and trace elements that are present in the salt and at what concentrations at what salinity. Those should be all the suppliments your 2.5 gallon pico should ever need. I would start there before even asking what should I dose...you mostlikely do not.

 

[Kyle918]

Well duh, but which one? My LFS doesn't carry it

Check drsfostersmith.com and bulkreefsupply.com

Everyone has their own preference but if you just search the forum, you can find all the information you could ever want to know about test kits..and it will probably cause you headaches reading everyones' opinion on each...it really comes down to what is accurate first of all and what is easier for you to conduct as a test...also different test kits have different color scales..some are easier to read than others...that really sways most people...how easy the test is to conduct and how easy the results are to read...and most of all, if it is even accurate. Hanna checkers tend to be the preferred method to test mag though.

 

[SpartaReef]

Check drsfostersmith.com and bulkreefsupply.com

Everyone has their own preference but if you just search the forum, you can find all the information you could ever want to know about test kits..and it will probably cause you headaches reading everyones' opinion on each...it really comes down to what is accurate first of all and what is easier for you to conduct as a test...also different test kits have different color scales..some are easier to read than others...that really sways most people...how easy the test is to conduct and how easy the results are to read...and most of all, if it is even accurate. Hanna checkers tend to be the preferred method to test mag though.

Thank you for that very well thought out answer. I will look into it. So far I've been using a swing arm hydrometer and api test kits for everything... Corals are growing like crazy and inverts seem happy.... Been struggling to add anything right now though so waiting till next month to try again.