what to dose after PWC

[02tts]

does anyone here dose antyhing after a PWC? Since I'm using Red Sea Pro salt which contains trace elemtens, calcium balance, etc...I usually don't dose antyhing other than Trace Elements once every two weeks.

wondering if anyone doses anything to replace things like beneficial bacteria...using something like instant ocena's bio-spira, hagen's cycle, marc weiss's bacter vital, etc....does anyone use any of these products to replenish any beneficial bacteria removed during a PWC of say 20-30%.

 

[melosu58]

I dont dose a thing. PWC`s is all I need. You should not dose anything unless you test for it first and see that you are low. It`s a bad practice to just dose something and dont know if you really need to.

 

[cmor1701d]

DO NOT DOSE anything you do not test for first. I use the same salt and add Calcium to bring it up.

Trace elements will be replenished by regular partial water changes (10%/week, or 20% every other week).

 

[02tts]

only concern was for things like nitrite....seems that after I do a PWC they go up a bit, and yes, I've already tested the water that I'm using and it's 100% clean and so are the filters, I use RO/DI water, but, after changing 20% of my water, my nitrites spike the next day...ammonia remains at zero and nitrates remains the same.

in the past, I used to add cycle after the PWC - mainly because of LFS advice, which was poor advice, but never seemed to hurt antyhing...

that being said, if my nitrites spike up do to some die-off or just because of removal of beneficial bacteria vs. fish load...should I be sticking back to using something like cycle...

 

[Innovator]

It is rather pointless to overly concern yourself with nitrite since it shows little effect on fish and invertebrates unless extremely high. As long as your NH3 is 0 and NO3 is reasonable (<20 for corals) then you should be fine. Most of the time, with nitrite, what you are seeing is a reshuffling of conversion points. Also, you should not conduct water tests until at least 24hrs have passed from your last water change since the excess of organics now within the water column interferes with results (usually shows higher values). I only dose Ca, Alk, and/or Mg depending on what my initial results were before the water test and my estimated results after; otherwise, I would just perform your necessary tests and adjust from there. If you don't test for it, don't put it in your tank