What supplements is mainly important

Have you guys ever go into a pet store and see like millions of bottles of supplements. for this and that.. it gets pretty overwhelming sometimes. I just wanted to know what do I really need to get and not waste any more money on stuff I really don't need.

I have:

Calcium Supplement
Magnesium Supplement

Do I need to also get a bottle of iodine, strontium, potassium, vitamin c, etc etc etc etc....

 

It all depends on your consumption rate and if you do WC. If you normally do WC and dont have a big "demand" you should be fine. When you start to get/have a lot of corals that consume those elements faster than the WC can replace it, thats when you need to start to dose extra. Having said that, if you dont do WC, then you need to start dosing on a regular basis. Again, all depends on your load.




Luna

 

A good answer to that question is to see what the LFSs use. Ever notice that they often keep their supplements at their display tanks? I often see bottles of marine snow, DT's phyto and strontium.

I think calc, alk, mag are all necessities if you keep corals. After that, strontium is probably next on the list. I don't use anything other than those four, but wouldn't mind hearing from some others.

 

I do water changes every 2 weeks at 10% each time. Maybe I'll just add a bottle of strontium to my collections.

 

I also perform a 10% water change every week and add 20ml of mag. Besides the mag I add no other additives to my 90 gallon reef.

Randy

 

I work at a LFS and I will tell you this, all you need is alk, ca and mg.... Sr is not needed or at least the jury is out.... Shimek is a serious anti strontium guy whereas Nilsen and Fossa are kind of against it but their argument is that corals AREN'T using it so why add it? Shimek on the otherhand says it will interfere with calcification and is a waste.

But hey there are some people out there that dose everything and love to do it.

Happy reefing!

 

I too use those 4 plus I test and add Iodine since I have a mostly soft coral tank. You must test for what you need....water changes by no means supply what you need unless you change out 30% weekly, which in my opinion is excessive.

 

Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium are the bare minimum unless you have a light coral load or mainly softies then water changes might keep up. Those are the only things I'm adding to my tank right now with a medium to high stony coral load.
Until someone proves to me that testing for and dosing something else is necessary I'll probably stick to the basics, plenty of great tanks out there that just do the basic 3.

 

Thats What I was hoping for. Alk , cal, and mag. is all I need. Thanks guys for the input. Very helpful!

 

I will say that the only things you should ever dose into your tank, you need to be testing for. And only dose what your tank needs not what the bottle says to dose.

Now with that said you will need calcium and some type of an alk buffer for all coral tanks. Magnesium may be needed but not all tanks need to dose magnesium.

How much you need to dose will be determined by the salt mix you use and how often you do water changes as well as the growth of corals/etc in the tank. If you use a salt mix high in CA/Alk like Oceanic/Oceanpure etc, you might not have to dose anything in the tank. If you use a salt low in Ca/Alk (old Instant ocean), even with very little growth you should be dosing quite a bit of ca/alk just because you are starting at a very low level.

Kim