Dosing

Uptowngirl · Nov 2, 2019

Hello everyone!
What is the best way to dose your nano tank? I have a 29 biocube that’s pretty much all softies, wanting to get into lps/some sps but I’m not sure the best and most consistent way to dose. I currently use b-ionic for the couple of lps that I have but I am notoriously bad at forgetting to do it. Should I get a doser, ato, Kalk, or what? Also without a sump how do you hide all of this dosing stuff?
Thanks!

Silent · Nov 2, 2019

Look into all-for-reef

AdamB · Nov 2, 2019

I would hand dose with 2 part If your adding lps and a few sps . Softies don’t need to be dosed .
If you start adding sps you will eventually need a doser to make life easier on you
If you decide to get sps in future and buy a doser I would buy a small end table to house doser to hide and run lines up back side of your tank so that will not be too noticeable.

dwest · Nov 2, 2019

I wouldn’t dose anything until water changes don’t maintain alkalinity. I’ve never had a Nano so hopefully others will chime in. I do know when I had a 20 gallon tank with softies I never needed to dose.

Uptowngirl · Nov 2, 2019

With the few lps frags I have now bi-weekly water changes aren’t enough to maintain stability. My calcium and alkalinity change drastically each time. How can I help it be more stable, doing water changes weekly?

Lonely reefer's · Nov 2, 2019

Not sure if this will help you
Here how I mounted my doser

Mykawl · Nov 2, 2019

Kalkwasser in ato is the way to go just need to do some math with how much your tank evaporates per day and how much alk/calcium you need per day. For this you’d need a separate reservoir tank

I’ma tempermental coral · Nov 2, 2019

+1 on the All For Reef. Been running it for about a month now and it’s shown very good initial results for my mixed reef. That said I don’t have any softies at all just lps and sps.

AdamB · Nov 3, 2019

I think your best bet is hand dosing 2 part into your tank. . When started adding lps and a few sps I had the same problem with low alk during first year startup.
I started hand dosing B -ionic couple times a week with a bi weekly water change for about 6 months.I began adding acros ,montiporas, and other sps after that time and could not keep up with daily dosing by hand so I bought bubble magnus doser which was awesome in taking that day to day task away from my busy schedule. I still use b-ionic and acro power and my water changes consist of a 20% every 3 weeks .
Good luck!

SMSREEF · Nov 3, 2019

Uptowngirl said:
With the few lps frags I have now bi-weekly water changes aren’t enough to maintain stability. My calcium and alkalinity change drastically each time. How can I help it be more stable, doing water changes weekly?

I was in the same boat. When water changes couldn’t keep up, I started with Kalk. I never liked the idea of ATO adding it because the amount will change daily, plus I was scared to death it would add too much all at once.

When I started dosing, I added Kalk with a BRS dosing pump on a timer. It runs about 45 minutes 5 times during the night. Every night dosing is the same. Kalk is cheap and easy, and keeps pH up at night. You can mix it less concentrated at first, but after coral grows you will need fully saturated.

I wish that’s all my tank still needed, but I have corals in 8 gallon water volume so now I dose Kalk at night and added a BRS doser to add Alk and Calcium too.

You have more water volume so hopefully the only Kalk will be good for your tank for a good while. It was for mine about a year until corals got bigger.

Katrina71 · Nov 3, 2019

You really shouldn't need to dose with softies and lps. Just my .02

Katrina71 · Nov 3, 2019

Btw, the Afghan in your Avatar is gorgeous!

Uptowngirl · Nov 3, 2019

Katrina71 said:
Btw, the Afghan in your Avatar is gorgeous!

Thank you! He’s such a good dog

Uptowngirl · Nov 3, 2019

SMSREEF said:
I was in the same boat. When water changes couldn’t keep up, I started with Kalk. I never liked the idea of ATO adding it because the amount will change daily, plus I was scared to death it would add too much all at once.

When I started dosing, I added Kalk with a BRS dosing pump on a timer. It runs about 45 minutes 5 times during the night. Every night dosing is the same. Kalk is cheap and easy, and keeps pH up at night. You can mix it less concentrated at first, but after coral grows you will need fully saturated.

I wish that’s all my tank still needed, but I have corals in 8 gallon water volume so now I dose Kalk at night and added a BRS doser to add Alk and Calcium too.

You have more water volume so hopefully the only Kalk will be good for your tank for a good while. It was for mine about a year until corals got bigger.

Your tank looks great! I might try Kalk and see how I like it. I’m all about simplicity

vetteguy53081 · Nov 3, 2019

Dose by hand as you will require small amounts. I don't like my chemicals sitting in a bottle allowing it to settle unless you up for stirring the additives for dosing every day.
I have a 50g drop off tank and that I do manually by hand. My other two on full set up with dosing.