What should I supplement?

[reefer1970]

My 125g mixed reef has been up for 10 months now and everything is going well and most corals are happy. Zoas, mushrooms, ricordia, softies, frogspawn, hammers growing like crazy. Acros, slimmer, birdsnest , stylofora especially not doing so well. I have (3) Kessil 360's and about to supplement with my old T5's. Apex controlling it. My calcium is at 420+ and my alkalinity seems low at 6 dkh. I'm waiting for some funds to start adding kalkwasser to my ATO. My question is, I don't have a test kit for magnesium or iodine , etc., Is there anything I should just assume I need to supplement and add it or should I wait until I can get a test kit? Is there an all in one supplement I can add and what brand is preferred? I do use Salinity salt.

 

[TimeConsumer]

Don't supplement anything you can't test for. If you do not have quality test kits for calc, alk, and mag get those first. It is easy to get incorrect readings on those tests with low quality ones. If you are doing any stony corals a supplementation for those three is very important unless you do a ton of water changes. I would aim for your Alk to be somewhere in the 8-9 DKH range, but you may have a testing issue.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

My 125g mixed reef has been up for 10 months now and everything is going well and most corals are happy. Zoas, mushrooms, ricordia, softies, frogspawn, hammers growing like crazy. Acros, slimmer, birdsnest , stylofora especially not doing so well. I have (3) Kessil 360's and about to supplement with my old T5's. Apex controlling it. My calcium is at 420+ and my alkalinity seems low at 6 dkh. I'm waiting for some funds to start adding kalkwasser to my ATO. My question is, I don't have a test kit for magnesium or iodine , etc., Is there anything I should just assume I need to supplement and add it or should I wait until I can get a test kit? Is there an all in one supplement I can add and what brand is preferred? I do use Salinity salt.

For around $5 you can get pickling lime from your grocery store or Walmart and it will last you forever LOL Only two teaspoons per gal of top off water, so you really can start it now. Use the Search function here for it.

 

[Percula9]

You need to bring up the alk with some baking soda.An alk of 6dkh is to low.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Yep baking soda works too but I think the pickling lime is more widely accepted

 

[Sapelo]

"Don't supplement anything you can't (and don't) test for."

This.

 

[homer1475]

"Don't supplement anything you can't (and don't) test for."

This.

+1 x 1000

 

[tg1966]

We have a thriving reef tank. We test 3x per week for Alkalinity and Calcium. 1x a week for Magnesium. We use the BRS soda ash, calcium chloride and mag mix to adjust.