Dosing help w/ inverts.

[Kuma]

Alright, I'm currently looking into dosing my aquarium, most products I see say do not use with inverts. I currently have a 30g with a few nassarius, ceriths, and astraea snails along with a 2 hermits and an emerald crab and 2 cleaner shrimp. The coral I have are a Purple Stylo, Green Duncan, and GSP. I'm just wondering if it's something that's possible, but err on the side of caution, don't bother dosing, or are the coral I own atm not need dosing?

 

[Ron Reefman]

First, welcome to Reef2Reef!

What is it that you are thinking of dosing?

Most people dose Ca and alk, some dose Mg. Some even dose nitrate and phosphate these days. But none of those will cause any issues with your inverts.

Are you testing for Ca, alk or anything else?

How long has your tank been running?

How many corals (and what kind, i.e zoas, softies, lps, sps)?

 

[Biglew11]

how long has your tank been up? what products are you looking to dose, and why? what is your alkalinity and calcium usage? at 30 gallons your 10% weekly water changes should be taking care of alk. + cal. for now, things in a tank that will use it coralline algae (good) snails, lps coral sps coral. don't dose anything you don't measure.

brs two part is the most common brs 2 part. you need to know how much you use. to know how much to add.

edit welcome to r2r

 

[Kuma]

Alright, thanks to you both.

Tanks been running for a little over 10 months now.

The products I were looking at was some of Seachem's Reef 1&2, there were a couple more but I forgot the name to them. I mainly wanted to boost the calcium in the water since I figured with the amount of snails/shrimp/coral combos etc that I might need to compensate for that loss.

The coral count: Just 1 GSP frag, 1 Green Duncan, 1 Purple Stylo. Everything has been going okay, It was just one of those steps that I was looking forward and trying to research before I actually did it.

 

[Bryknicks]

As a general rule of thumb, only dose what you test for. If you are currently not testing, then I would not dose anything. Do you have any test kits? For now I would only worry about testing for nitrates and phosphates as you don't have demanding corals.

Given that you have very little coral and only one stony coral, you will not need to dose anything for some time. Just keep up with consistent water changes and that will replenish what the corals use from the water.

 

[Biglew11]

+1 what he said
research is good, you don't need to dose anything if you're not using it up. if you don't have them yet get test kits for your alkalinity, calcium and magnesium. alkalinity around 7 to 9 Dkh, calcium 390 to 450 ppm, magnesium around 1350, magnesium is used very slowly and water changes generally keep up with it fairly well. a gallon of solution last me about 1.5 years in my 75.

 

[Kuma]

Okay, perfect. Thanks. In response I have the RDI Saltwater kit, I'll look into some of the others that I can upgrade to. I was under the impression that I HAD to dose if I was adding coral, but knowing that most of the nutrients for what I have is coming from the water changes is a plus to know. I'll just leave it be, everything seems to be going well, I just purchased some Reef-Roids.