Those liquid buffer things.

Well in lfs, there are bunch of bottles for buffers and stuff. Like iodine, calcium, ph, etc etc. Do I need any of the bottle to have a successful reef? If so do I need to buy everything? Or just certin ones?

 

Mkizla

in a 29 gallon Biocube, lightly stocked, performing weekly or fortnightly water changes
Ill be surprised if you need to buy any of the additives

if you ever upgrade, get a larger tank, stock it with more demanding species like SPS for example - then you might need to, or by that time, you may have found other methods of achieving your target parameters , rather than buying the bottled liquids and buffers

the above comments are for Calc, magnesium, Iodide, Strontium, Molybedum, Iron, Manganese, PH buffer, ALK buffer etc

coral foods and food stuffs , ike coral frenzy, coral snow, phyto plankton etc, are different
and yes some of those might be suitable for you depending what you keep in your tank


Test kits 1st - additives second - if in the future you test calcium and you find its less than ideal - then you add calcium - same for magnesium and ALK
but as said before in a small tank with limited demand, water changes are often ample for maintaining parameters

Steve

 

I agree with Steve don't add anything to the tank with out testing for it first, other than food

 

55 Gallon
08/08/08 Complete Sump cleaning, all components..........
Date Calcium Alkalinity PH Phosphate Magnesium Nitrates

04/04/09 400 11 8.3 1260 n/t
04/11/09 360 10 8.3 1250 0
04/18/09 400 9 8.2 1480 n/t
04/25/09 380 9 8.3 1440 0
05/02/09 428 8 7.8 1380 n/t
05/09/09 480 8 8.4 1420 n/t
05/16/09 580 7 7.8 1450 0
05/30/09 8 8.2 1500+
06/06/09 460 8 8.2 1350
06/13/09 540 9 8 1425 0
06/20/09 460 9 8.2 1425 n/t
06/27/09 500 8 8.2 1410 N/T
07/04/09 520 9 8.4 1350 0
07/11/09 500 10 8 1425
07/25/09 520 11 8.4 1395
08/01/09 500 11 8.2 1380 0
08/09/09 480 11 1410
08/16/09 520 12 8.2 1350 0
09/05/09 460 11 8.2 1455
Here is an example of weekly testing........