Starting corals - feeding and dosing questions!

speedcorals · May 5, 2024

Hey Everyone!
Have a tank, that i setup and established for about 8 months with fish and a hammer, gsp and xenia. Learnt the basics and keeping the tank stable. Now looking to add more corals and have some questions.

My specs are as below
1.Evo 13.5
2.Spectra Aquaknight V2 (please suggest good settings if anyone is using the same)
3.ATO
4. Fluval ps2 skimmer
5. Added a nano bag of chemipure blue, will switch to chemipure elite. (Feel like this is overkill, please suggest what i can run instead like a combo of seachem carbon + purigen)
6. Adding reefroids once in a while to keep hammer, xenia and gsp happy.

Now looking to start adding Zoa, mushrooms, acans, more hammers, and goniporas. Trying to understand what to dose, what to add and feeding.

Multiple products i see, tropic marin all for reef, red sea ab+, red sea 4 part. Trying to understand dosing elements vs supplements like ab+, getting a little confused with this. Redsea has a recipe builder on their website too.

Does anyone have a simple routine for supplements + dosing they follow for a nano tank.

MoshJosh · May 5, 2024

All For Reef and two part (and in Red Sea's case, four part) are for replenishing alkalinity and calcium that is depleted due to coral growth. dosing these will depend on how rapidly your tank (your corals) use them. In a 13.5 gallon tank, doing regular water changes will likely be sufficient in replenishing these components for some time.

AB+ is an amino acid supplement (there are many other similar products such as Aquavitro Fuel). Corals can absorb amino acids from the water column. . . but dosing them is not absolutely necessary, though some say they help with keeping goniapora. This is an over simplification but still. . .

Difficult to give advice without knowing your parameters but. . .

Personally, your current feeding regimen sounds fine, feed the fish and occasionally feed Reef Roids. You can start dosing amino acids if you would like, just keep in mind they can contribute to your nutrients (N and P).

Can't give you alk and cal dosing advise without knowing what your alk and cal are. If they are low/not controlled well with water changes I would personally go with All For Reef or a two part for simplicity. I dose All For Reef in my 11 gallon (based on fairly frequent testing) and am happy with it so far.