red sea products

So I recently started using red sea reef foundation and coral colors. Everything's doing really well but I wanted a second opinion. Is Red Sea as good as my LFS says it is, or are they just selling me the expensive stuff to make a buck? Anyone use this?

 

Your LFS is in business to make money. They do so by selling products. Some of these snake oils, if you are lucky, do nothing at all (they're mostly water). Others, however, can be dangerous long-term. Do you know what's in them? Can/do you test for it? If the answer is no for either question, stop putting it into your tank. If you need to dose anything, buy the proper test kits and components. There is no such thing as "one size fits all" in reef chemistry.

 

I appreciate your reply and of course I know what I'm putting in my tank and of course I test for everything and everything is right where it should be as far as my parameters. My question is does anyone else use Red Sea and if so or if not what are your reasons? I'm asking this to test my LFS and see if they are blowing smoke or telling the truth. Plus a second opinion is never a bad thing.

 

I have in the recent past used a lot of red sea's products. They do work as claimed but if you have a large tank-they say anything over 50 gallons- this can and will get very expensive. If you have a smaller tank or a small load you'll be fine for a while. Once everything starts to grow look into some other products. Also if this is your first reef tank with a lot of the leg work done they make it easy to dose- just remember the numbers they put on their bottles is just a suggestion for dosage. You will have to fine tune for your system.

 

Red Sea makes good products, as far as test kits and their salt mix....however, honestly those coral colors and additives they sell aren't necessary. I too fell into that trap buying all these bottles of chemicals and it worked to a degree. I took all that stuff away and just started feeding every day normally as I do and regular bi-weekly water changes and my tank is doing better than ever before. I however need to supplement cal/alk but I do that with kalk mixed in my ATO and 2 part to maintain numbers all cheap from BRS. Like stated before if you can't test it, it doesn't need to be there. If you feed your tank and coral normal food and occasionally, if you really want to, an amino acid it will be more than enough. IMO.

 

Ok thanks guys, I think im going to continue to use them they really seem to be working well! I just tested it and everything is perfect except the magnesium. Its seems really high to me 1840 ppm! Should it be that high? Everything else is... Ca=465 Kh=4.5-12.6 Phosphate=.25ppm nitrate=0.
If the Mg is to high how do I get it down?

 

o damn! lol. idk how you managed to get it that high? Retest it to see if it really is that high. and if it is. I bet you one of those supplements you're adding has a good amount of magnesium in it also. I know when I used to dose the vitamins, those things had a lot of magnesium in them and brought up my levels to a bit over 1500. Water changes are your best bet to bring it down.

 

Hence the reason I said there's no such thing as one size fits all...

 

!?!?


for the record i use nopox daily, i would agree with rcflyer however, i too think the supplements are useless unless you have a crazy amount of corals in your system. but as mentioned what works for one does not forcibly mean it will work for someone else. the important thing is that your fish and corals are thriving.

always double check what your LFS says, they are out to make a buck.

 

+1 your livestock and what they consume will determine how to dose. Simply reading a package wont do. Be patient and test regularly to see what your corals consume so you can dose accordingly or you'll end up overdosing the system. High levels of any supplement will wipe out a tank. Personally im a fan of red sea but I use there coral pro salt and test kits. We all want the best for our tanks but its easy to get carried away and things spin out of control quickly.