Dosing for my end goal tank?

[laezur]

Hello everyone!

So after a year and a half, almost two years now, I've finally come to the conclusion that I want to solely keep LPS and Anemone's in my tank, with the odd softie such as mushrooms dotted around the tank.

For too long now, I've been going by eye. Sure, everything looks great and nothing is dying but I'm certain I can do better. Come this payday I am going to look at setting up my very first dosing pumps, and I'm looking at either two pumps or three (?).

I obviously need to test and find out where I'm currently at, but I do weekly water changes to replenish elements so I think that's why everything is doing just fine, but once I've tested what are the three main elements I should look at dosing to keep this kind of tank thriving? Pumps are expensive, so I only want to start with three max, and dose the most important elements through there for now until I can expand on that.

Cheers!

 

[Troylee]

Cal, alk, mag are the 3 most important. The rest can be replenished with water changes..

 

[laezur]

Cal, alk, mag are the 3 most important. The rest can be replenished with water changes..

Magnesium I've heard (anecdotally) that it should be kept quite a bit higher for things like anemone's, torches, hammers etc all to thrive - do you know anything about that? I've heard 1500 is the sweet spot.

 

[Troylee]

Magnesium I've heard (anecdotally) that it should be kept quite a bit higher for things like anemone's, torches, hammers etc all to thrive - do you know anything about that? I've heard 1500 is the sweet spot.

1450 is ideal but 1500 won’t hurt.. it will give you a corraline explosion haha!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

a bit strange IMO, to go from not testing for 2 years straight to dosing.

You first need good test kits, then need to test and keep track of your numbers for a few days to find out what is being consumed by your tank, then you know what and how much to dose.

Also consider, your corals are used to certain parameters, if you go changing parameters, you might have reactions that you are not expecting.

Also, every tank is different, people have different parameters and temperatures and salinity's, and still have success. So one specific parameter is not the key to all coral success in all tanks.

 

[laezur]

a bit strange IMO, to go from not testing for 2 years straight to dosing.

You first need good test kits, then need to test and keep track of your numbers for a few days to find out what is being consumed by your tank, then you know what and how much to dose.

Also consider, your corals are used to certain parameters, if you go changing parameters, you might have reactions that you are not expecting.

Also, every tank is different, people have different parameters and temperatures and salinity's, and still have success. So one specific parameter is not the key to all coral success in all tanks.

Sure, I don't see how it's that strange. Wanting to take my reefing to the next level rather than just lazy reefing seems to me like a fine step to take. Especially as I'm going from 1-2 coral to now hoping to fill the tank out with LPS and Euphyllia and these numbers will be more important when doing so.

Plan is to get some hanna's or the good salifert kits, test over a week or so as you say to see how much i am using and then just keeping these stable with dosing. I don't want to go wildly changing any parameters, and anything I do change I'll very slowly raise/lower.

 

[Dburr1014]

Sure, I don't see how it's that strange. Wanting to take my reefing to the next level rather than just lazy reefing seems to me like a fine step to take. Especially as I'm going from 1-2 coral to now hoping to fill the tank out with LPS and Euphyllia and these numbers will be more important when doing so.

Plan is to get some hanna's or the good salifert kits, test over a week or so as you say to see how much i am using and then just keeping these stable with dosing. I don't want to go wildly changing any parameters, and anything I do change I'll very slowly raise/lower.

Look into automatic water changes.
This might be all you need. It really is a game changer for stability. The water change will have everything you need and an LPS/anenome tank is not that demanding. I think dosing would be overkill. You will probably find that you won't be dosing much daily.
AWC maybe 1% daily is how I would go, IMHO.

 

[laezur]

Look into automatic water changes.
This might be all you need. It really is a game changer for stability. The water change will have everything you need and an LPS/anenome tank is not that demanding. I think dosing would be overkill. You will probably find that you won't be dosing much daily.
AWC maybe 1% daily is how I would go, IMHO.

I can look into this, I don't think it's currently feasible as I'm living temporarily in an apartment so there wouldn't be much space to put all the water butts, but I'll be moving this year and can potentially set this up with some piping. It will require some research for sure, but a step I wanted to eventually take way down the line anyway.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I obviously need to test and find out where I'm currently at, but I do weekly water changes to replenish elements so I think that's why everything is doing just fine, but once I've tested what are the three main elements I should look at dosing to keep this kind of tank thriving? Pumps are expensive, so I only want to start with three max, and dose the most important elements through there for now until I can expand on that.

If levels are below what you think are good target levels, yes. It is normal to dose in most reef tanks.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Magnesium I've heard (anecdotally) that it should be kept quite a bit higher for things like anemone's, torches, hammers etc all to thrive - do you know anything about that? I've heard 1500 is the sweet spot.

I don't think there's convincing evidence that higher magnesium is better. I recommend about 1250-1400 ppm.

1500 ppm seems pushing it to me (1280 ppm is the value for average ocean water).

Also recognize that magnesium testing is possibly the most inaccurate of the tests hobbyists use (IMO), and so someone saying 1500 works great for them may not really have 1500 ppm. Take a look at a scattering of ICP reports. It is unusual to see one that high, IMO.

 

[laezur]

I don't think there's convincing evidence that higher magnesium is better. I recommend about 1250-1400 ppm.

1500 ppm seems pushing it to me (1280 ppm is the value for average ocean water).

Also recognize that magnesium testing is possibly the most inaccurate of the tests hobbyists use (IMO), and so someone saying 1500 works great for them may not really have 1500 ppm. Take a look at a scattering of ICP reports. It is unusual to see one that high, IMO.

Thank you for this! As I said, it was anecdotal at best. Your word is gospel to me when it comes to this subject so I will stick with that. They usually say large polyp extension and the big flowy torches you get is due to the magnesium, but I think it might just be down to correct flow patterns more than anything.