Coral & Dosing Equipment Advice

[lterna]

I am currently cycling my very first saltwater tank.-Red Sea Reefer 350. The long term vision for the tank is to have a mixed reef tank. Since the cycle is underway, I am starting to plan out what my first couple additions to the tank will be. I was thinking about just getting two clowns to start. As for first corals, was thinking a zoa, since I am in love with their color options, and maybe another soft coral.

Would you guys recommend investing in a doser/other dosing equipment prior to getting any corals? If so, any advice on what to go with? I don't currently have the budget to invest in an apex neptune controller, and I know that neptune makes a dosing system. Ideally I will able to invest in one in the future. Anyway, I just wanted to get some advice on whether or not I should get some dosing system prior to adding any corals at all, or if I can add a few that don't really require the addition of any supplements and get one later.

 

[AdamB]

If your just doing zoas and soft corals you will not need a doser. You can wait to buy one when you get into the sps/ lps realm .I bought my first doser when I started mixing sps coral into the tank.
Of course it’s hard not to buy a lot of stuff in this hobby. I have backups for my backups lol!
Good luck

 

[AdamB]

PS. If you don’t have a good protein skimmer I would invest in .

 

[Billldg]

I am currently cycling my very first saltwater tank.-Red Sea Reefer 350. The long term vision for the tank is to have a mixed reef tank. Since the cycle is underway, I am starting to plan out what my first couple additions to the tank will be. I was thinking about just getting two clowns to start. As for first corals, was thinking a zoa, since I am in love with their color options, and maybe another soft coral.

Would you guys recommend investing in a doser/other dosing equipment prior to getting any corals? If so, any advice on what to go with? I don't currently have the budget to invest in an apex neptune controller, and I know that neptune makes a dosing system. Ideally I will able to invest in one in the future. Anyway, I just wanted to get some advice on whether or not I should get some dosing system prior to adding any corals at all, or if I can add a few that don't really require the addition of any supplements and get one later.

I wouldn't concern yourself with dosing right now, water changes will likely be enough for soft corals. Then you can add kalk down the road in your ATO if your parameters are dropping faster than you can replenish with water changes.

 

[Bayareareefer18]

I wouldn't worry about dosing right away. I am a little over a year into my first mixed reef and still manually dosing. You might find you don't even need to dose at all for quite some time. My tank is lps dominant with a few sps and manually dosing manages things and is quite stable.
For me money better spent was the apex EL

 

[PatW]

If you stay with soft corals, you may never need to dose. With LPS corals, hand dosing weekly will probably suffice. Even if you get into SPS corals, daily Hans dosing will do just fine until you get some large thriving colonies going. If you get clams going, it will be like SPS.