Dose but when?

[Cool tangs]

24 hours.

Use to do light cycle dosing and had issues with stability, youll be suprised corals take up elements at night to! 24 hours will create way more stability, especially when you start dosing amount that can easily push your tank past .5 swings in one dose.

 

[Cool tangs]

Most people who look deeply into dosing will dose alkalinity mostly during the day when it is mostly used.

Calcium dosing is not very time dependent, or even necessary more than once a day.

Magnesium dosing need not be more than once a week, though a dosing pumps more often is fine.

Some things, like iron or silicate, can be dosed once or twice a week.

Interresting on the Alk part that you have mentioned.

I use to dose alk during the day but I found myself having swings with lower alk by morning and higher alk in the afternoon.

Now with 24 hour dosing my alk is the same morning and afternoon.

Curious to know more, if you have time to elaborate learning is great for everyone, including myself!

 

[cocoReefer]

Ive got a simple calcium reactor with 10% magnesium based media. Just runs 24/7 and i check alk every few days, calcium weekly and magnesium sometimes.
Other than that, weekly hand dosing of iodide/iodine and chaetogro. 20-25% water changes every week to every month depending on me and the tank.... when i get the itch i have 3 packs of triton icp tests, ill send one every 60-90 days and fiddle a little when i see whats up.
125 display and 40 sump, somewhere around 120 total gallons.

 

[elysics]

My opinion, no. With the range of acceptable parameters for healthy organisms, trying to maintain something to the enth degree seems pointless. I learned a lot with the 75g SPS tank I had and one of the biggest was, don't sweat the small stuff. It takes a number of "bad" things to have noticeable effects on the corals. One thing being slightly out of "perfection" wont manifest into anything.

Depends on how big your tank is I guess. For smaller tanks that won't work out so well. I dose ~50ml a day of what is already diluted a bunch compared to commercial solutions and I am soon going to scratch the 3dkh per day mark.

I'd say for small tanks, it is better to dilute and dose more often than use as is in one big dose because your pump can't handle smaller doses

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Interresting on the Alk part that you have mentioned.

I use to dose alk during the day but I found myself having swings with lower alk by morning and higher alk in the afternoon.

Now with 24 hour dosing my alk is the same morning and afternoon.

Curious to know more, if you have time to elaborate learning is great for everyone, including myself!

People with automatic alk measurement and addition find the greatest alk stability when they dose during the day.

IMO, it is somewhat unclear whether the alk consumption is actually increased by light itself (photosynthesis in the corals) or by the higher aquarium pH during the day, or some combination of the two.

 

[attiland]

Depends on how big your tank is I guess. For smaller tanks that won't work out so well. I dose ~50ml a day of what is already diluted a bunch compared to commercial solutions and I am soon going to scratch the 3dkh per day mark.

I'd say for small tanks, it is better to dilute and dose more often than use as is in one big dose because your pump can't handle smaller doses

What pump you are using? Mine claims to handle 0.1ml. I don’t actually use less than 1ml doses but could.

 

[elysics]

What pump you are using? Mine claims to handle 0.1ml. I don’t actually use less than 1ml doses but could.

Kamoer nkp, so the standard dosing pumps, but with a 1mm inner tube diameter.

Haven't tried it how accurate I can get it, I stopped at 3 drops at a time, mostly due to the tube holder having a bigger diameter

Soon to joined by pumps from a broken ghl doser I got for cheap