Dosing advice

mike007 · Jan 1, 2014

If you are planning on using a dosing pump get your calcium,akalinty and magnesium to correct levels before dosing with the pump. Don't try catchup with the pump or you will have issues. Once you get levels where you want them go 3 days witout adding anything and then test. Determine what your loss was with each element and divide by 3. This will tell you your daily intake. Once you do this then go to one of the reef calculaters like the brs one and it will tell you how much to dose to maintain these levels.Then you can set doser accordingly. I made this mistake and had my parameters all messed up. Live and learn. lol

Zero Nitrates · Jan 2, 2014

Thanks Mike!

TruRacr314x · Jan 2, 2014

Thanks for the advice....getting ready to use a doser soon! Getting to be too much to manually dose...

revhtree · Jan 2, 2014

Great advice!

lsaint88 · Jan 2, 2014

Cool I am having to start dosing

McAllyn · Jan 2, 2014

This is exactly the type of tips that I need. Starting to add some decent SPS and want to start dosing. Will start manually, but plan on adding a dosing pump sooner rather than later.

Thanks!

Mac

Flameangel08 · Jan 2, 2014

Wow. I was thinking about dosing and this forum came up on my facebook! I have a 100 gallon mostly lps with a 25 gallon sump. I have 3 sps that look great but grow very slowly. I know my parameters are good but never stable. I tested today. Alk is 9.3 and calcium is above 480.. I am planning on an 8 alk and 430 calcium. Once I reach these levels, I plan on using the bulkreefsupply dosing pumps with their dry chemicals. Are my projected parameters good? I plan on adding more sps.

vetteguy53081 · Jan 2, 2014

Actually a future plan.

blufin · Jan 2, 2014

What dosing pumps are you guys recommending?

mike007 · Jan 2, 2014

I am using the Bubble Magus doser. I find that it it is easy to program and setup.

blufin · Jan 2, 2014

mike007 said:
I am using the Bubble Magus doser. I find that it it is easy to program and setup.

Thanks for the response. I like the ability to program up to 24 doses during the day. It will spread out the dosing instead of dumping it all at once.

427HISS · Jan 2, 2014

I asked this same question on another post, but how much does our chemical products like carbon and mechanicals like skimmers, etc... use up our dosing products ?

mike007 · Jan 2, 2014

Every system is different that is why you have to do the 3 day test to determine what your tank is consuming.

427HISS · Jan 2, 2014

With adding corals a lot, especially sps's, clams etc, how often do you preform the 3 day test ?

glb · Jan 2, 2014

mike007 said:
If you are planning on using a dosing pump get your calcium,akalinty and magnesium to correct levels before dosing with the pump. Don't try catchup with the pump or you will have issues. Once you get levels where you want them go 3 days witout adding anything and then test. Determine what your loss was with each element and divide by 3. This will tell you your daily intake. Once you do this then go to one of the reef calculaters like the brs one and it will tell you how much to dose to maintain these levels.Then you can set doser accordingly. I made this mistake and had my parameters all messed up. Live and learn. lol

Great info! I dose manually but the formula for figuring out how is the same. Very helpful!

AquamanE · Jan 2, 2014

Great advise.

Nothing wrong with manual dosing until you get ready to dose with pumps. I did manual dosing very successfully for 4-5 years and succeeded with no issues.

I preferred to spend money on a controller and use BRS pumps hooked up to it instead of individual doser. I felt money was better spent that way since you get other advantages from a controller, but its a personal choice.

mike007 · Jan 2, 2014

With a dosing pump you avoid the swings in your parameters which keeps our tanks stable. If you are housing sensitive corals like sps this is a must. I personally test once a week and adjust accordingly.

BebeCR · Jan 2, 2014

Thank you for the advise!! I'm planning on getting a doser the next month!

ryecoon · May 14, 2014

If i go without dosing for 3 days and it dips really low would that have a crucial effect on my sps?

newlyreefd · May 14, 2014

AquamanE said:
Great advise.

Nothing wrong with manual dosing until you get ready to dose with pumps. I did manual dosing very successfully for 4-5 years and succeeded with no issues.

I preferred to spend money on a controller and use BRS pumps hooked up to it instead of individual doser. I felt money was better spent that way since you get other advantages from a controller, but its a personal choice.

When you dosed manually, what product did you use?