Dosing timing

[kilnakorr]

I'm sure this has been discussed many times, but I can't seem to find any answers.
I know Alk and Ca should not be dosed at the same time, so I'm currently dosing Alk during the day and Ca during the evening/night.
But what about Mg? Does it matter or is there a best practice to dose this?

 

[e3pillereefer]

Check out Bulk Reef Supply's videos. I think Mag can be dosed all at once and anytime into a high flow area? I'm a newb too so look for more enlightened answers.

 

[kilnakorr]

Check out Bulk Reef Supply's videos. I think Mag can be dosed all at once and anytime into a high flow area? I'm a newb too so look for more enlightened answers.

I'll check that out, untill a more experienced reefer can chime in

 

[blasterman]

Alk should mostly be dosed during the day because it's almost entirely consumed during the light cycle with SPS corals. Dosing at night just saves up alk for the day cycle. The goal of automated dosing is to keep alk stable during heavy consumption, so by dosing alk at night you are defeating the purpose.

Calcium gets consumed with alk obviously, but your tank has so much more calcium in it there's not much benefit when specifically you dose it within a 24hour span unless you have some insane SPS loads. It's just often easier to mirror your alk and calcium dosing program for starters and then offset them a minute so they don't collide and precipitate.

Mag can be included with how you do calcium. I wouldn't waste a channel on it personally and just manually add it, but it's up to you. Again, you would need one heck of a SPS load to see daily drops in mag.

If you dose kalk, or in my case working with sodium hydroxide for pH boost you want to start dosing before the lights kick on to get your pH up and take advantage of it.

 

[kilnakorr]

Alk should mostly be dosed during the day because it's almost entirely consumed during the light cycle with SPS corals. Dosing at night just saves up alk for the day cycle. The goal of automated dosing is to keep alk stable during heavy consumption, so by dosing alk at night you are defeating the purpose.

Calcium gets consumed with alk obviously, but your tank has so much more calcium in it there's not much benefit when specifically you dose it within a 24hour span unless you have some insane SPS loads. It's just often easier to mirror your alk and calcium dosing program for starters and then offset them a minute so they don't collide and precipitate.

Mag can be included with how you do calcium. I wouldn't waste a channel on it personally and just manually add it, but it's up to you. Again, you would need one heck of a SPS load to see daily drops in mag.

If you dose kalk, or in my case working with sodium hydroxide for pH boost you want to start dosing before the lights kick on to get your pH up and take advantage of it.

So basically, I'm on the right track. Alk at day, and currently Ca at evening/night (could do a few minutes after alk if I wanted to).
Mg can be dosed at anytime.

 

[blasterman]

Yep.

I'm just curious how you are calculating daily mag use. It's typically like, 5-6% of calcium uptake.

 

[Uncle99]

I just dose every hour, MG at .15, CA at .30 and Alk at .45 mins.

 

[kilnakorr]

Yep.

I'm just curious how you are calculating daily mag use. It's typically like, 5-6% of calcium uptake.

I don't.
Using AF 123, and just wanted to know when to dose not how much

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm sure this has been discussed many times, but I can't seem to find any answers.
I know Alk and Ca should not be dosed at the same time, so I'm currently dosing Alk during the day and Ca during the evening/night.
But what about Mg? Does it matter or is there a best practice to dose this?

Just don't dose it within a few minutes of the alkalinity.

 

[kilnakorr]

Just don't dose it within a few minutes of the alkalinity.

I'm currently running Mg at least 2 hrs apart from Alk, so should be good.
Now I just need to test and dial in the amount.

Thanks for all the replies!