Am i missing anything critical by DIY dosing?

[nornicle]

Hi there, I haven’t kept a reef in about 8 years... and i was getting myself very confused with all these tritons and aqua forests and people trying to sell me $40 500ml bottles of ‘part A B and C’

Then i remembered while i didn’t have perfect colouration that i used to manually dose my nano with effectively $50 of store bought chemicals yearly... the retail market really has gone crazy.. and people selling single peristaltic pumps for what used to be sold in batches of 3...

my question is: do these new products add something that i’m going to miss out by doing normal two part dosing... and if so, how can i manually add these parts or dose them without having to full ‘kool aid’ set....

 

[Ron Reefman]

I don't think you're missing anything. I agree that the market for snake oil in this hobby is huge! I dose manually once a week. I dose snow and ice melt products for Ca and Mg (and Epsom Salt). I dose swimming pool soda ash for alk. And look how bad my tank looks.

 

[AC1211]

You might miss some trace elements maybe but that would have to be researched into.

 

[Quietman]

I'm not sure trace elements and premixes qualify as snake oil, as those elements and products do work (as opposed to true snake oil which is only just a way to move money from your pocket to someone else's).

I think they are more for convenience and yes you do pay for convenience.

Do they add things you can't easily do yourself? Nope.

Look at All for Reef - which I use. Even the company, Tropic Marin, publicized a formula you can do yourself for 1/3 less (using their products of course). One - kudos to them, but two - I'm still buying the All for Reef because I like the convenience.

 

[Quietman]

I don't think you're missing anything. I agree that the market for snake oil in this hobby is huge! I dose manually once a week. I dose snow and ice melt products for Ca and Mg (and Epsom Salt). I dose swimming pool soda ash for alk. And look how bad my tank looks.

Terrible, just terrible!

 

[fjpod]

Colors really pop.

 

[Indytraveler83]

I think one thing I'm learning in this hobby is you've gotta figure out what your system needs. I dose manually, but I also keep an lps/softy heavy tank with corals on the easy/ moderate scale.

There are people that keep sensitive corals I wouldn't dream of attempting, and probably couldn't be kept at all not that long ago. Those folks likely find these advanced methods and products to be absolutely essential.