Dosing

Rmckoy · Dec 20, 2022

Is there a calculator for dosing everything including manganese , bromide , iron , potassium. And all other elements where icp testing isn’t required ?

blaxsun · Dec 20, 2022

Rmckoy said:
Is there a calculator for dosing everything including manganese , bromide , iron , potassium. And all other elements where icp testing isn’t required ?

Probably, but I go off the recommended dosage, test and adjust using "best guess".

Rmckoy · Dec 20, 2022

blaxsun said:
Probably, but I go off the recommended dosage, test and adjust using "best guess".

For example . There was a product I had years ago reefgrow .
by testing Alk , cal , and mag the calculator gave me a dose for many other elements such as manganese , bromide , iron etc .
at that time dosing all these is when I had no issues with any coral and my tank was at its best

Lavey29 · Dec 20, 2022

Red sea trace dosing uses a calculator but it's really based off calcium consumption.

blaxsun · Dec 20, 2022

Rmckoy said:
For example . There was a product I had years ago reefgrow .
by testing Alk , cal , and mag the calculator gave me a dose for many other elements such as manganese , bromide , iron etc .
at that time dosing all these is when I had no issues with any coral and my tank was at its best

I use Nyos Active Elements, Strontium and Iodine. The suggested amount (after initially reducing by 50%) is 5ml of each per 25 gallons weekly, or 35ml of each per week. In testing I found that 25ml of Active Elements, 12.5ml of Strontium and 6.25ml of Iodine pretty much kept my levels stable. One of these days I'll actually get another ICP test done and have a look at all the elements that may be out of whack.

Rmckoy · Dec 20, 2022

Lavey29 said:
Red sea trace dosing uses a calculator but it's really based off calcium consumption.

Being based off of calcium . Is every element dosed based in calcium or is each element tested ?

blaxsun · Dec 20, 2022

Rmckoy said:
Being based off of calcium . Is every element dosed based in calcium or is each element tested ?

I don't think you could test every element unless you ran an actual laboratory yest.

Lavey29 · Dec 20, 2022

Rmckoy said:
Being based off of calcium . Is every element dosed based in calcium or is each element tested ?

Not sure, red sea approach is based off running ULN system and thats not my approach. When i was doing weekly water changes i didn't worry about trace elements because i knew they were being replenished. Ive gone to monthly water changes now so i chose to try red sea ABCD dosing. They have a calculator to give you a baseline for dosing and i have been using maybe 6 months now. I typically score 90 or higher on my ICP and the vast majority of my trace elements are in good ranges so I'm sticking currently with their dosing recommendations. The calculator shows daily dosing number but I just dose the full amount once weekly. Buy as I mentioned, red sea bases their products on ULN system so I am approaching this with some caution.

Rmckoy · Dec 20, 2022

Lavey29 said:
Not sure, red sea approach is based off running ULN system and thats not my approach. When i was doing weekly water changes i didn't worry about trace elements because i knew they were being replenished. Ive gone to monthly water changes now so i chose to try red sea ABCD dosing. They have a calculator to give you a baseline for dosing and i have been using maybe 6 months now. I typically score 90 or higher on my ICP and the vast majority of my trace elements are in good ranges so I'm sticking currently with their dosing recommendations. The calculator shows daily dosing number but I just dose the full amount once weekly. Buy as I mentioned, red sea bases their products on ULN system so I am approaching this with some caution.

I will look into it further . And as you mentioned I don’t want ULN but something isn’t right …..,
It can’t be the upgrade to a larger tank so
Must me the other other options that I am skipping .
either dosing everything or the weekly water changes .
Even 10% water changes on this tank is a pita or …
How effective can smaller water changes be ?
We all know it’s costly to maintain weekly water changes if they are not needed and to only replenish elements .

having 5ppm nitrates it would make more sense to dose

Lavey29 · Dec 20, 2022

Rmckoy said:
I will look into it further . And as you mentioned I don’t want ULN but something isn’t right …..,
It can’t be the upgrade to a larger tank so
Must me the other other options that I am skipping .
either dosing everything or the weekly water changes .
Even 10% water changes on this tank is a pita or …
How effective can smaller water changes be ?
We all know it’s costly to maintain weekly water changes if they are not needed and to only replenish elements .

having 5ppm nitrates it would make more sense to dose

Well on large systems, daily small auto water changes seem to be the best approach to maintaining those systems. If you are over or under slightly with some trace elements I don't think it has any affect on your tank from everything I have read. Of course perfect balance is the goal.

Katherine Corals · Dec 21, 2022

Rmckoy said:
Is there a calculator for dosing everything including manganese , bromide , iron , potassium. And all other elements where icp testing isn’t required ?

Have a look into the Reefmoonshiners program! I started it back in Feb 2022 and wont do a tank now without it. After the first couple of ICP test results, you build a rhythm of element consumption in your tank and can make adjustments and track your tanks use. After about 3 ICP tests, I now only send in 2 a year.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 21, 2022

Rmckoy said:
Is there a calculator for dosing everything including manganese , bromide , iron , potassium. And all other elements where icp testing isn’t required ?

Such a calculator needs both knowledge of the supplements used, the desired and measured element levels, and the aquarium size. No calculator can do that for the general case, only for specific additives.