ranger

You can pk up at any walmart a 13 lb bag of baking soda in the pool area for cheap......bake it...your done. Then use brs for your calcium.....i have used prestone driveway an other cal diy with no problems but try to use the brs stuff if i have the money.

20 years ago out of the blue all my acros would not grow at all.......they didnt rtn/stn just no growth. Took a flashlight at night and saw a ton of little clear what i belive to have been sea spyders. After sucking them out over a month everything went back to normal. Long of it i would look at night at any lps/sps and see if these thing are on them otherwise there are most likely hundreds of creatures rooking at night we never sea. Always seems like a good idea to have some type of wrasse that eats pest if you dont already.

Check out richard ross on reef beef has in my view the only normal view on nutrients and algea and reef cleaners. Been in the hobby since late 80s all this junk out from these companys are a scam or newbies looking for a quicker way falling prey when all you need is light /flow/rocks and inverts ........nothing else but some time. You look at things a little different with time and experience. You have to be messing with all these quick fixes to some how get a tank to produce ammonia after the cycle is done.... I always feel for people getting in recently because of all the crap they think they need.....the reefcentral days were great as we all tried to understand phos and nitrates....carbon dosing...etc. But really the forums are a nightmare of coral sellers and media reefers pushing junk. I love following ross because he is the 1 outlier.

Put a ammonia alert if you think there is problem it is just about impossible to get a spike in ammionia in a non new reef tank unless you are messing with it..... These bacteria in a bottle are a cure looking for a problem that isnt real.....prime is what may be needed i add this a couple times a year just incase. Prime works on a real problem which is chloramine.......ammonia plus chlorine is nasty so you should always in my thinking proactivly address this with a little prime. I have never seen any corals or reef inverts or fish respond in any way to it.

You are suppose to have algea as long as it is green you are fine......think of it as food for your inverts. You dont need anything in a bottle its all a scam except for red slime remover...they are alot of sand inverts like conches,hermits etc For rock and glass i like small tuxedo urchins,small turbos money cowries and red banded trochus snails. If you have a fair numbers of these cleaners your green algea no matter your nutrient levels will be fine. When you drive down n or p you risk dinos or slime then you have a real issue.

You hit the nail on the head........lots of cleaners then add some nori or i like the algae tablits they sell for pleckos when needed,Reefcleaner in florida have money cowres in stock add a couple of them also .

Home depo has 30% cleaning vinegar will take off anything.........just use it outside

I always run a poly filter after carbon just to be safe.....cheap insurance considering what we have spent on our tanks.

All magnets pretty much do this at some point ..........should replace most after a few years.......

Think kessil but with the right color.....for a 150 price tag

Look them up it will be quite obvious...the nicrew is nice but for a 100 bucks less the smatfarm is just better.

Look at smatfarm on amazon its far and away the best cheap led fixture way better then nicrews.

Black worms have always worked for me.......just need to pick a heathy fish to begin with

In 1988 set up a tank with fresh live rock sunlit from a window [DUTCH REEF].......then moved on to a 110 with a deep reverse sandbed/ozone and heavy chemical filtration with no water changes this has been an easy successful way to keep reef tanks for over 30 years......I have seen so many people leave its unreal i believe its the belief that you need to do water changes that drives people away......you become a slave to your tanks.

I HAVE had massive sand beds in 20 plus tanks for over a 40 year period and dont do water changes or touch my beds.There has never been a trace of red slime except when i tried vodka dosing.Barebottom large water changes are 1 way but so is a nice deep sandbed with ozone and no water changes.Aci doses chemclean regularly it is crazy to me to not use it the second you see red slime.If i had to do water changes i wouldnt have tanks.Its does seem like the sandbed guys like myself are a dying breed.