What should I dose my water with?
 

I recently got a 55 gallon setup. It has everything with it. I am wondering what to dose the water with (iodine,etc.) to make thing on the live rock flourish. I was told that there was a lot of life on the rocks, and it just needed additives.

calcium, strontium, iodine, any/all of those should help... trace supplements.. im sure there will be other responses more of help but thats the basics

Your salt should have enough trace elements in it to get you started. Your lights will help things grow that are photosynthic(sp.) What do you have for lights? If you find out what type of things are growing on your rocks we can give you more info.. As for now I wouldn't add anything since it sounds like this is a new tank, like I say your salt mix should have all you need.

Right now it has 80 watts of normal flourescent. But fairly soon I plan on getting a 260 watt Power Compact hood. The tank as been setup for a couple of years with the 80 watts, we just moved it yesterday.

weekly water changes and buffer to top off water.

Never add anything unless you plan on testing for it before and after. Good way to kill a lot of stuff is to add supplements/chemicals in a helter skelter fashion without knowing what your levels are before or after.

I use Two Little Fishies C-Balance. Mostly I use it instead of B-Ionic because C-Balance ships concetrated. Has to be reconstituted with RO/DI water. Saves a lot on shipping it.

B-ionic is shipped the same way. You have to add a half gallon of RO/DI to dilute it and make it useable.

well, i don't think i'm gonna dose my water unless i get some kind of coral or somthing. Thanks for all the replies and help though. :)

Nothing except maybe B-Ionic or something similar to that. As long as you do regular water changes everything should be fine.

Don't waste your money on a ton of worthless crap, just have a good water change schedule and use b-ionic now and then and you should be fine to house anything you want.

Just do regular water changes with good quality make up water & you won't have to dose anything.The only thing I dose besides using my water changes,is Limewater,which is to replace my evaporated water.It boosts the calcium which is good for corals/inverts & it has the added bonus of helping to remove phophates.Like Freed stated,don't add anything unless you are going to test for it.If you do,you may find you'll knock a stable tank out of balance & then end up in a catch 22 trying to stabilize it by adding yet more chemicals.HTH

The least you can do is test alk.+Ca. Then add Kent Super buffer or Coral Builder to maintain alk every week and Reef Complete to maintain Ca (add 1 or 2 days apart). And of course 10-20% water changes every week or 2. This is what i do on my 20g w/ clowns, anemone and a couple of hardy corals---and i don't even test water parameters. But any "special additives" are worthless.

I'm bringing this thread back. I have decided to set up the 55 as a reef tank. What will I need to add to keep corals successfully?

Calcium and Alkalinity are still all you need.

would somthing like this be good?
[url]http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=4737&ref=3532&subref=AQ&N=2004+113458[/url]

i use calcium, iodide, and reef carbonate, and there has been alot of new corals, and sponges popping-up everywhere.

Just use a 2 part solution, for beginners it is very simple and easy to use. I have been keeping numerous reefs for many many years and I do 20-25% water changes every week and test ca/alk levels every week before the water change. If something needs to be boosted up, I'll just use that part of the 2 part solution. Very very simple. All this other crap is just marketing, do regular water changes and you won't have any problems.

[url]http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produ...Q&N=2004+113458[/url]

Is this a 2 part solution like you were talkin about?