At what point should I start dosing Two-Part?

[bluecheese]

I know every tank is different, so there will be differing opinions. But is there a consensus on when to start dosing?

125 gallon tank
Set up in August of 2021
Using Reef Crystals salt mix
Lights turned on January 2022
First coral added May of 2022 - a small zoa frag
I've been slowly adding corals to the tank since then
All corals are young and relatively small, for the most part
First testing of Calc, Alk and Mg was around that time, and came up with values of:
Calc - 490
Alk - 9
Mg - 1320

I just tested the water today and came up with the following values:
Calc - 395
Alk - 7.6
Mg - 1280

Which are on the lower end of what most people would find acceptable

Should I start dosing 2 part to bring the values back up to what there were a year ago?

 

[OutColdCRNA]

BRS has a great calculator to calculate how much to dose to bring your levels to the range you want. I would test at the same time for two to three days and figure out what your consumption is. Say for example you notice you are drop .2 alkalinity per day. Then you plug in .2 into the calculator and it spits out what the dosage would be to cover your consumption. If you have been doing regular water changes you may have been keeping up with demand for a while. Now is probably the time to start dosing. And geaux tigers! I’m in Shreveport and can’t wait for Friday to watch the CWS!

 

[bluecheese]

I hope we beat the orange out the Vols this Saturday. There are few coaches that I dislike more than Vitello.

Back to dosing, so do you think I need to bring my current levels up? Or are they still acceptable?

 

[MooreReefing]

Like you said, every tank is different and there are differing needs and uptake in parameters depending on what corals you are trying to keep. But generally you as you add more corals, you should just regularly test until you notice a consistent decline in your parameters. So if your calcium is consistently dropping week after week and not just swinging, then you should start dosing. Start slow and regularly check until you get a grasp on how much you should dose vs how much your corals consume and you’ll find a good dosing regimen balance to keep everything in line and happy!

 

[MooreReefing]

If you want to bring them up, just plug your endgame number into the calculators for that parameter on BRS and it’ll tell you how much you need to dose to get there. As long as your corals are happy and thriving then don’t feel the need to peg a certain number and go number chasing. Just keep it simple and maintain and you’ll be far better off! Just start out slow and test regularly!

 

[bluecheese]

How often are you testing? I'm testing at least once a month, though I try to test more often

 

[MooreReefing]

How often are you testing? I'm testing at least once a month, though I try to test more often

My parameters generally don’t move much anymore so I’ll try to test biweekly just for peace of mind but when I first started dosing, I went a little overboard and tested a couple times a week. But if you start out slow and make adjustments slowly over time then I would recommend testing your big 3 once a week until you start feeling comfortable with your dosing regimen.

 

[19Mateo83]

Get your magnesium up to where you want it before you start dosing two part. It’s levels effect how the calcium and alkalinity is absorbed into your system. The levels of cal, mag and alk are all related to each other

 

[bluecheese]

Sounds like I need to buy more test kits

 

[OutColdCRNA]

I hope we beat the orange out the Vols this Saturday. There are few coaches that I dislike more than Vitello.

Back to dosing, so do you think I need to bring my current levels up? Or are they still acceptable?

I went to grad school in Omaha, of course they didn’t make it the 4 years I was there. If work had let me off a few days next weeks I was gonna make the drive up. Got some tough competition this year.
But back to the matter at hand. Bring the mag up . Test for consumption of consecutive days. Slowly replace dose to what you want you alk to be and then daily dose to match your consumption.

 

[bluecheese]

I went to grad school in Omaha, of course they didn’t make it the 4 years I was there. If work had let me off a few days next weeks I was gonna make the drive up. Got some tough competition this year.
But back to the matter at hand. Bring the mag up . Test for consumption of consecutive days. Slowly replace dose to what you want you alk to be and then daily dose to match your consumption.

Wake Forest worries me the most. They've been on fire. But, our bullpen seems to have finally woken up and our bats have been good. Gonna be a fun world series.

 

[wheels4896]

BRS has a great calculator to calculate how much to dose to bring your levels to the range you want. I would test at the same time for two to three days and figure out what your consumption is. Say for example you notice you are drop .2 alkalinity per day. Then you plug in .2 into the calculator and it spits out what the dosage would be to cover your consumption. If you have been doing regular water changes you may have been keeping up with demand for a while. Now is probably the time to start dosing. And geaux tigers! I’m in Shreveport and can’t wait for Friday to watch the CWS!

I should have looked for that before making a calculator in excel lol

 

[OutColdCRNA]

Wake Forest worries me the most. They've been on fire. But, our bullpen seems to have finally woken up and our bats have been good. Gonna be a fun world series.

For sure! I worry about the pitching depth. Can’t run skenes the whole tourney.

 

[twentyleagues]

This really depends on your corals, what kind, how many and w/c schedule. If all you have are softies then wc is all thats needed most likely. If its mostly sps then dosing will be needed. Mixed reef could go either way but dosing will probably be cheaper. My first mixed reef got along fine with weekly wc for the first 18 months or so, it was a 75g mixed reef then I kept the weekly wc and added kalk to the top off and that was good until i got crazy with the system and added about 1300g more worth of "tanks".