easy to care fore "method"?

Want a forum like this? Click the ad above

[johnqx4]

Tangster,

You have probably mentioned this a number of times. And I have cut and pasted it, but I can't find or remember it....

But you have said something to the effect of: " there is really only three things you need to worry about in order to maintain your tank" Something like if the PH, mag and buffer is right, everything pretty much has to be.... And here is the easiest way to keep them up.

Now, I'm not going off half cocked... I have been reading you post for several years and my tank is probably like you would recommend. I have two tanks (30 and 50 gallons) connected to a 25 gallon sump. The sump had the skimmer on it as well as offset light and macro algaes and a bunch of snails and worms. The smaller of the tanks has NO lighitng with uri bulbs and the larger (which use to be the same lighting) i have just upgraded to MH (250 watt). I have an RO unit that supplies the water and I have extrememly low BIO loads. In the two tanks the only fish are 5 chromis and some shrimp. Everything else is mostly low/medium light corals. I have a lot of button and star polyps and some mushrooms and xenia (weeds:).

Everything is growing great and all appear to be happy. I change a little water (5 gals per week) and I add a little turbo calcium and some reef essentials (kents) OH, and I also use a chemi pure bag in the sump.

I guess that the only thing I would like to change is the chemistry so that I don't change water as much. I don't dose much of anything since I have low bioloads, but I am getting ready to install a new topoff and thought that a kalk doser might also be the ticket, then I remembered your post on what really matters. And I thought I might ask you to repeat it (or some such there of).

I keep thinking epson salts, pickling lime, etc....

johnny 

johnny

[Tangster]

 I have changed less then 100 gallons of water in the last 30 yrs (: The Kalk reactor would be a good addition and if you use a Ca reactor ? I do but if you add some simple dolomite to the Ca. reactor media mix about 3 tbl spoons that will keep the magnesium up also. But yes just a kalk reactor will do you just fine and would probably handle a pretty good load.. I have to dose Calcium even with  the use of a Ca. reactor and  Kal Reactor as-well. But yes all you really need to do is add buffer and ca and magnesium I like my Mag to be around 1400 ca at 450 or so and DKH at 12 to 15 Epsom salts works for me always has and Turbo ca is a good product and Thats about it less is more ..


 It amazes me that 95%  + of who try my methods say about the same hing as you .. And have good to great success .  Then like yesterday on another board I see where the adding Vodka and sugar to a system is rearing its head again LOL Like with most everything I found out yrs ago it does not work. Long term.. People read and repeat to damn much information overload I call it.
 I had not thought about the old sugar or honey even raw brown sugar in yrs Then a Guy came by Sunday to see this set up he was adding sugar and saying he had a uncontrollable algae problem LOL So that got me curious again and yesterday I started to look around and I see many touting that crap again.. But like with everything I know from yrs of failures LOL It won't work long.. But tell someone that and Bamm right back to well the expert says to LOL Feed the systems as the sugars will feed the bacterial to feed the corals .. But from hat I gathered yesterday it is all to control Nitrates more then anything else.. And  it will do that also.. Until it wipes the tank out.. 
 But I guess low teck is just to simple for most ?  But Like i said I found out 25 plus ago what glucose and sugar carbons and or DOC's will do to a system.. This really does not pertain to what we are talking about other then to give any who will listen here that I'd just say no.. And to give you guys a heads up as I thought that old idea would never the light of day ever again.. Oh and I also have been seeing where the Aquarium God have been changing simple acronym's like with DOC aka Dissolved Organic Carbon's and they use DOM or DOS now.. Dissolved organic matter or organic solids LOL totally different meaning. And like I said I'm just offering a heads up and on this site here They maybe won't call be uneducated or ignorant for the Waring's ?? LOL Yes I'm back to village idiot it seems LOL     

 P.S and again this new vodka or sugar thing will be tied back into the simple fact the aquarium gads are just trying to prolong their DSB life LOL I bet you will start to see that in the near future. Thats why it was tried in the late 70's to feed the natural systems .. aka DSB's 

[Crimson Ghost]

less than 100 gallons in 30 years....I hope one day I can say that !  But I only got's 9 years in or so - and after the great mouse attack of 2007 I changed a poop load of water  :-)

Tang - any way we could get you to post a detailed write-up of what I will refer to as a Roger-setup ? 

first cover the system and hardware (gallons, fuge, ca reactor, skimmer...etc), water turn over, lighting, photo periods, maintenance frequencies and amounts (chemi-pure, purigen, bulb life etc.) and addatives (epsoms, plankton etc).  Basically an all around set-up that you would expect to be just about spot on accurate for a reef with minimal tweaking after set up.

Once you do that (if you ever have time) let us go over it, ask questions and add things as needed....than we could get Clive to sticky it.

[Tangster]

 I'll do that But I doubt many will listen and most will want to just get into a piss'en contest . My Methods are a tad out dated and old low tech.. I see it in eyes when I tell someone what I'd do. LOL Case in point right now Guy stood right in front of me last Jan.. at a LFS and was crying about his very high nitrates .. Could not get them lower the 20ppm averaged 35 with every test.. Had a fuge all that stuff a DSB and yadda you no a R/C and he is a engineer .. All I told him flew in the face of the experts at R/C and all of his research said I was wrong and they where correct!  Well several month went by still fighting them he again pinned me at the LFS and was telling me I was wrong he had did more research (: And what I was suggesting him to do would not solve his problem.. LOL I swear to god . The place was packed .. I looked him right in the face and said will I was not suggesting anything I was telling you how to fix your damn NO3 problem..  Cut the refugium to 5 to 10 gallons slow the flow to about 7 to 10 GPH toss the cheado and reverse light it.. That was not an option as he slept in that room (: He had a 90 gal with a 55 refugium LOL

 Then oh about 2 months ago I ran into him and he took the advice and almost wanted to Kiss me Like a dam child that found a 5.00 bill . NO3 at zero tank looking better then it ever had remove the DSB and walled off the 55 to about 12x12 for the fuge . Tossed the cheado ad alled what I use . So he came by last Sunday to see my crap.. Then he told me he was pouring or adding raw sugar to create bacteria to feed his tank LOL That trick is older then the DSB and far more risky.. Then I find out many are touting that idea again using Vodka and pure sugar. I posted that will anyone who would do that are as dumb as a box of rocks and in a few week you'll start to red of Honey and brown sugar being used also. Well I guessed someone googled it I saw them both mentioned somewhere on a site the other day LOL .  But yes I'll put somthing together..

[Crimson Ghost]

People are what they are Roger - and everyone has to learn on their own.  By the time they settle into a site like this they already have the DB overflowing with gadgets and are ready to listen.  I have a hard time believing that someone would purposely dump sugar and vodka into a system.  The world is full of idiots.....