Dosing in a Pico?

[VKP01]

I’ve got a 4g currently softie and lps tank, but I’m looking to get into more lps and possibly sps. I’ve got tests for Ca/Alk/Mg arriving tomorrow to determine if I currently need to dose. If my water changes with reef crystals don’t keep up with demand, I would probably be looking at B-Ionic 2 part.

I was just looking for some thoughts and experience on dosing in a pico - let’s define that as <10g for this thread - before I get into it.

 

[Tuffyyyyy]

Are you doing water changes? I have a 20 gallon with a lot of SPS in it. I don't dose, I just change 3 or 4 gallons of water every week, and I have kalk in my ATO container. With a tank that small, if you're doing water changes, I wouldn't expect for you to need to dose.

 

[VKP01]

Are you doing water changes? I have a 20 gallon with a lot of SPS in it. I don't dose, I just change 3 or 4 gallons of water every week, and I have kalk in my ATO container. With a tank that small, if you're doing water changes, I wouldn't expect for you to need to dose.

I do very small water changes (<5%) weekly to replace water taken for tests or siphoning debris, but I’m trying to get my nutrients higher so I don’t do water changes for nutrient export.

 

[ihavecrabs]

I would also be surprised if water changes don’t take care of it for you.

The biggest complaint I see with WC “dosing” is the swing. If you only do weekly changes a 1 or 2 dkh swing isn’t great for sensitive corals.

So an auto water change with a doser is one solution. Another would be to just dose.

B-ionic is great. I use ATI essential pro at the moment. Both provide trace elements in addition to major elements which also reduces the need for WCs; however, due to contaminants in a Pico, I’d keep those going.

 

[andrewkw]

I do very small water changes (<5%) weekly to replace water taken for tests or siphoning debris, but I’m trying to get my nutrients higher so I don’t do water changes for nutrient export.

Switch to 100% water changes and forget about the dosing and even the testing other than to get a baseline. Find a salt that has parameters that you like and stick with it.

I ran a 2 gallon pico for 7 years. I tried dosing a few ml testing it ect (I am a big fan of weekly testing in any tank that it's not possible to do 50%+ water changes), but in the end it was just easier to entirely replace the water once a week. I still got a bit of a swing but it was tolerable. Notice the chalice encrusting up the acrylic in the bottom left.

 

[biophilia]

With a tank that small the simplest and most inexpensive option to keep alk and Ca stable is to forgo an ATO altogether and instead get a cheap dosing pump. Guestimate your average daily evaporation amount as well as DKH draw and dose a small amount of kalkwasser at the necessary saturation with the dosing pump every few hours during lights on. I've had that method work really well even on a 3.7 gal pico and it only required topping off by hand once a week or so once I got the doser dialed in.

 

[VKP01]

Switch to 100% water changes and forget about the dosing and even the testing other than to get a baseline. Find a salt that has parameters that you like and stick with it.

I ran a 2 gallon pico for 7 years. I tried dosing a few ml testing it ect (I am a big fan of weekly testing in any tank that it's not possible to do 50%+ water changes), but in the end it was just easier to entirely replace the water once a week. I still got a bit of a swing but it was tolerable. Notice the chalice encrusting up the acrylic in the bottom left.

Wow, that looks great!! ;Wideyed Originally my plan was to change an 18oz cup of water daily (14% wc) but my nitrates won’t come up and I don’t want to run it completely clean.I guess nutrient dosing would be an option, or a salt that has nutrients. Seems kinda ironic to do that in a pico though

how did the mini max do in there?

 

[VKP01]

With a tank that small the simplest and most inexpensive option to keep alk and Ca stable is to forgo an ATO altogether and instead get a cheap dosing pump. Guestimate your average daily evaporation amount as well as DKH draw and dose a small amount of kalkwasser at the necessary saturation with the dosing pump every few hours during lights on. I've had that method work really well even on a 3.7 gal pico and it only required topping off by hand once a week or so once I got the doser dialed in.

That’s a good idea! I’m not looking to automate very much as I enjoy doing everything hands on, but that gives me something to think about.

 

[VKP01]

My tests will be here tomorrow, so I can see what’s going on and get a better idea how to go about maintenance.

 

[brandon429]

what i like most about picos is you can't harm anything w the huge water changes. picos started to show us how inflexible reefs rules were quite flexible. so much that I now often leave my pico totally drained for half an hour in the air just to condition it tough. I can also switch to any saltbrand I want for the refill, all those params are expected and risen to in my system.

*you can blast feed your whole tank an hour before the big change, feeding every polyp in excess then ripping out all that which would normally waste

 

[Hogdaddy]

I have a 5 gallon with softies, lps, and zoas....change 1 gallon weekly...testing showed I needed to dose for calcium and alk...so I put like 1/3ml of reef fusion 1 and 2 in 3-4 times a week. Did not dose for a few months and had no real growth....now, growing good.

 

[Hogdaddy]

Pic

 

[Iván Olalla]

You can visit my build thread if you like.... 8 gallon mixed reef heavily packed... the way i aproached your issue was scheduled WC and the use of kalk... my tank consumes 1.8 dkh daily, i dose 40 ml of saturated kalk solution every 2 hours, the numbers are steady regarding ca, kh and ph...mag is replenished with the 10% wc every 10 days and other than that i only dose acropower weekly

 

[VKP01]

You can visit my build thread if you like.... 8 gallon mixed reef heavily packed... the way i aproached your issue was scheduled WC and the use of kalk... my tank consumes 1.8 dkh daily, i dose 40 ml of saturated kalk solution every 2 hours, the numbers are steady regarding ca, kh and ph...mag is replenished with the 10% wc every 10 days and other than that i only dose acropower weekly

Amazing tank!! Thanks for sharing, very helpful information

 

[VKP01]

Tests just came in. Everything tested low, I’m using Salifert tests.
Ca - 375ppm
KH - 7.7dKH
Mg - 1260ppm

 

[brandon429]

reco: begin with larger wc and measure after a week

see if you can get by on weekly or bi wk with that larger exchange.

 

[VKP01]

Alright, so I tried changing at least 3.5% - 7% daily, for a total of a little over 30% this week. Because I did a small amount each day I believe it was less effective than a smaller one once a week. The schedule wasn’t enough to keep up with consumption, and my levels further dropped, testing today at:
Ca - 360ppm
KH - 7dKH
Mg - 1050ppm

 

[VKP01]

Are there downsides to dosing other than the extra maintenance? I already work on my tank daily and it wouldn’t be any more difficult for me to add two part, but is this any different on the livestock than a strong wc schedule?

 

[brandon429]

I used to do the simplest dosing ever for about 7 straight years in my pico, to drive way extra coralline caking

I bought a set of two little fishies C balance

added a quarter cap of the yellow in the mornings before lights on on mon, wed, fri and the blue/quarter cap full on the other days. usually some element of water change weekly or bi weekly

that's so simple if you want to dose

 

[VKP01]

I used to do the simplest dosing ever for about 7 straight years in my pico, to drive way extra coralline caking

I bought a set of two little fishies C balance

added a quarter cap of the yellow in the mornings before lights on on mon, wed, fri and the blue/quarter cap full on the other days. usually some element of water change weekly or bi weekly

that's so simple if you want to dose

That does sound very simple! I’ve been eyeing b-ionic, I’ll give that one a look and compare them.

This is probably a pretty basic question, but how do water changes affect dosing? I assume if you’re dosing to the same levels as your salt then there’s no effect, right?