Black powder worth it???

[Flame_Angel]

I was at my lfs the other day and decided i might want to try black powder. Have any of you guy/gals tried it before? and if you have is it worth the 20$ or is it just some pointless chemical to put in your tank?? Thank you for your advise.

[Chuck S]

[ QUOTE ]
I was at my lfs the other day and decided i might want to try black powder. Have any of you guy/gals tried it before? and if you have is it worth the 20$ or is it just some pointless chemical to put in your tank?? Thank you for your advise.

[/ QUOTE ]

You took the words out of my mouth. POINTLESS CHEMICAL

Everytime someone has actually done a chemical analysis of these things the people like Marc Weiss end up with egg all over their faces. These things are nothing but snake oil and best left alone and save your money. You can do a much better thing for your tank by doing regular water changes.

[cheletnjared]

Chuck - I tend to agree with you on this one. I dosed ReefVital DNA (a Weiss product) without seeing much change in the health of my corals or tank in general as it proposed.

I would love to see what you dose in your own tanks if anything. I would also like some recommendations on what to dose in an all softie tank, all SPS/LPS tank and a combination tank.

Anyone else is welcome to respond as well.

Thank you Chuck for your dedication to the hobby.

- Jared.

[Chuck S]

Thank you Jared,

No need to praise me I do this out of love for the hobby. I am involved quite a bit in this hobby.

I too have tried Reef-vital and the other such products. I too have seen no positives and quite the opposite. They have led to algal blooms.

Chemical Analysis has not been kind either to these chemicals calling them 99% water.

On my tanks I employ the following. All tanks are kept at 400-450PPM Calcium and 10-12DKH Alkalinity through either the employment of a calcium reactor or seachems reef buider and reef advantage.

The only chemical I dose other than that is Iodine. Iodine is depleted readily in an aquarium and is needed for coral Growth and Health. It also has an antiseptic property so dosed accordingly has good benefits. I dose one drop per 20 gallons weekly or bi-weekly. I test water before this to ensure I do not overdose.

Other than that I do not dose anything else but do bi-weekly or twi-weekly water changes.( I try and keep on schedule but am not perfect ) /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Flame_Angel]

Thank you for your input, I already bought it in my hast to see faster groing corals, even though my candy canes are already taking over my tank... Well if this stuff leads to unwanted algal blooms then i will never try again, I only really use kent marine products like the tech-m, tech-i, calcuim, and strodium I have had great success with these product but wanted to try something more. That and the lier at the lfs that told me he uses it and saw a 2x growth rate for his zooanthid polyps, witch i know are real slow growers for having 3 colonies for over 2 years, and i was takin in finding my hand opening my wallet...... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif. Well i will keep speacial tabs on my zooanthids.... thanks for the advise guys.

[Chuck S]

Kent products are good. I tend to use Seachem personally on any tank where I do not have a calcium reactor.

[Flame_Angel]

Is seachem better then kent? Do you have better results then with kent products or is it just you favor that company? Cuz if sea chem is really better then i will have to change over. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Chuck S]

Its each persons opinion. I think I get better results with Seachem but then the next guy might say Kent so take it with a grain of salt.

[broadwave]

I like the SeaChem products as well. They work real well for me. For corals I use the Kent Coral Accel. I have had great results with it as well as other reefers nearby have had good resukts as well.

I have used the Marc Weiss Reef Vital and it seemed to have gotten rid of a breakout of ich. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

It may have just been a coincidence....

I did not see any difference in my corals at all wiht that product.

[SueT]

I used that Reef Vital DNA stuff back when I first set-up my 120 in 1998. All it lead to was a bad case of algae and not pretty algae at that. I use Kent products over Sea Chem as to me it was easier to understand the dosing directions. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif I use Kent's Kalkwasser, Tech M, and Lugol's iodine solution. For buffering I use Kent's Superbuffer powder. I feed my tanks with DT's and the new product KoralvitF. This is a product made by Daniel Knop's company and is supplied by Barry at clamsdirect. It is a suspended nutritional food basically for clams, filter feeders, corals etc. It is a very small amount dosed every day but I am using it every 3 days or so. 1cc per 100 gallons of tank water. My clams sure do love it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Water changes weekly and that is it.