OUR METHODS
OUR METHODS HERE AT 818
We get asked so frequently about our methods that we wanted to share some details! Here are some simple details of our systems and paramaters without making things too complicated boring or long.
OUR SYSTEMS
All of our systems and techniques are designed so that they can be applied to any system with any corals with excellent success.
Our tanks are all setup the same and are extremely extremely simple. Good lighting, a nice quality protein skimmer, return pump, and always multiple undersized heaters to prevent any issues if one were to ever break. Thats about it.... We recommend that you do not add too many devices to your tank that may over clean or over complicate the system.
PARAMATERS
We run the exact same paramaters on every system we ever put together. If ever the tanks go away from our recommended paramaters we slowly adjust as needed. We never do any quick or large changes to our systems ever.
ALKALINITY 7-8
CALCIUM 440
MAGNESIUM 1350
NITRATE 2-10
PHOSPHATE 0.02-0.08 NOTHING OVER .10
SALINITY 1.025-1.026
TEMP 78
LIGHTING
For the last 13 years we have almost strictly been running Radion lighting. We almost always run the SPS-AB+ Setting with overall intensity at 100%. We recommend quality lighting that has a nice soft spread that so we can run high par on almost all corals with zero issue. We keep our SPS corals at 300-700 par and our LPS corals at 100-600 par.
DOSING AND ADDITIVES
DOSING: On all of our systems we dose the same thing. BRS 2 Part Alkalinity and Calcium with BRS Magnesium as a very occasional addition when needed. For dosers we love our Aquaqiz it controls and doses Alk and is very highly recommended by 818! For calcium we use a basic Bubble Magus doser.
ADDITIVES: We do not do water changes and Trace Elements are our only additives.. We HIGHLY recommend the Reef Moonshiners Method!! It is what we use on all of our systems. There is no special sauce to color and keep corals. Stability and trace is key.
FEEDING: We do not feed any coral food or any additives in our systems other than fish food. We make our own frozen fish food and feed the systems lightly so that tank nutrients are always balanced.
