Evo 4 reef doser

Christopher Davis · Aug 13, 2017

I just picked up my first doser!!!

I have had pretty good success dosing by hand once a week and have seen good growth! I recently just switched over to all SPS!

However I am not sure what amounts I should be dosin at this point.
I am dosing DKH, MAG, CALC
I was told to start with dosing ten ml a day for each one, twice a day. Should I be dosing all three together? Or spread out. I am dosing 5ml at 2x a day to get to 10ml for all dosing.

Should I take a different approach?

Daniel@R2R · Aug 14, 2017

Best way to do dosing IME is to measure daily for a few days to determine your tank's daily consumption, then start dosing based on that. I wouldn't start with any arbitrary amounts. Also, your doses should at least be a few minutes apart in order to avoid precipitation.

TMB · Aug 14, 2017

If you have been hand dosing - why not just automate the same dose you've been using?
I agree with mdbannister - spread them out by 5 minutes or so to avoid precipitation.
What ever you do, don't chase numbers with automated dosing. You should be looking at trends over time instead. Making daily changes to the dosed amount will cause you to pull out your hair. And help create an unstable environment. HTH

Christopher Davis · Aug 15, 2017

TMB said:
If you have been hand dosing - why not just automate the same dose you've been using?
I agree with mdbannister - spread them out by 5 minutes or so to avoid precipitation.
What ever you do, don't chase numbers with automated dosing. You should be looking at trends over time instead. Making daily changes to the dosed amount will cause you to pull out your hair. And help create an unstable environment. HTH

Thank you! I was wondering about that as well! Definitely long term numbers!

TMB · Aug 15, 2017

Anytime! Glad to be of help.

Christopher Davis · Dec 7, 2017

Well here we are at the 4 month mark of dosing! And I have done lots of changes!!! Not to mention the confidence I have gained! Enjoy!

Reefer40b · Dec 8, 2017

I would keep an eye on the doser pump lines for back siphoning, I had an issue with mine same doser and found that the head rollers they had on there(same as a jeabo DP-4) were installed backwards... I think the heads were sourced from the same place or jeabo just copied them not sure... but either way both my jeabo and my EVO 4 had the same issue. Now that I corrected the heads I have no back siphoning!

Side note: If you need replacement heads just buy the ones for the jeabo DP-4 they fit perfect and of the same quality as far as I can tell.

Christopher Davis · Dec 8, 2017

Reefer40b said:
I would keep an eye on the doser pump lines for back siphoning, I had an issue with mine same doser and found that the head rollers they had on there(same as a jeabo DP-4) were installed backwards... I think the heads were sourced from the same place or jeabo just copied them not sure... but either way both my jeabo and my EVO 4 had the same issue. Now that I corrected the heads I have no back siphoning!

Side note: If you need replacement heads just buy the ones for the jeabo DP-4 they fit perfect and of the same quality as far as I can tell.

Awesome thank you for the information! I currently have my dosing lines out of the water about 1 inch above the water surface! That should prevent that from happening!

Reefer40b · Dec 8, 2017

I didn't mean siphoning from the tank you should ALWAYS put your lines above the water...

I mean siphoning the solution back through the lines back into the dosing container... So that when it dosed it had to refill the dosing line before it even got to the tank making my dose a lot smaller than it should have been...

Christopher Davis · Dec 8, 2017

Reefer40b said:
I didn't mean siphoning from the tank you should ALWAYS put your lines above the water...

I mean siphoning the solution back through the lines back into the dosing container... So that when it dosed it had to refill the dosing line before it even got to the tank making my dose a lot smaller than it should have been...

Oh gotcha! You know what I might have to take a closer look at that. Now that you mention it my magnesium was consistently low until I more than doubled my dosing. I’m wondering if I was running into the same issue and didn’t realize it was happening.

Reefer40b · Dec 8, 2017

Christopher Davis said:
Oh gotcha! You know what I might have to take a closer look at that. Now that you mention it my magnesium was consistently low until I more than doubled my dosing. I’m wondering if I was running into the same issue and didn’t realize it was happening.

It is possible, but it also does take a ton of mg solution to raise it so... Coincidence maybe idk