how find the right dosing for my tank?

[kamla]

hi all,

my Alk is a bit low 6.7
i am planning to dose to bring it up to 9 (Slowly)

i can use the BRS calculate to find out how much to dose.

but the issue is how do i determine how much water my tank has?
The BRS calculator needs tank gals...

my tank is a IM 20 AIO, i think i have about 18 pounds of Life Rock and 20 pounds of Sand.

Thax
Kamla

 

[Ron Reefman]

It's a 20g tank, start by assuming the rock and sand take up some small percentage (like 10% or 20%) and do the calculation for how much to dose. Then test and see if you dosed enough to get where you thought you'd be. If you didn't, the next time you dose, reduce the percentage to 5% or 10% and double check it again. It isn't rocket science and your tank will be just fine.

Question for you, how often do you test and how often do you dose?

I do my 40g cube (80g system) once a week and dose my alk from 6.0 dKH to 10.0 dKH manually over a couple of hours (every 15 minutes). Almost everybody here will tell you that's too fast. But I have zoas, softies, lps and sps corals that don't seem to mind at all.

 

[kamla]

It's a 20g tank, start by assuming the rock and sand take up some small percentage (like 10% or 20%) and do the calculation for how much to dose. Then test and see if you dosed enough to get where you thought you'd be. If you didn't, the next time you dose, reduce the percentage to 5% or 10% and double check it again. It isn't rocket science and your tank will be just fine.

Question for you, how often do you test and how often do you dose?

I do my 40g cube (80g system) once a week and dose my alk from 6.0 dKH to 10.0 dKH manually over a couple of hours (every 15 minutes). Almost everybody here will tell you that's too fast. But I have zoas, softies, lps and sps corals that don't seem to mind at all.

great !!!.. i will try it out..

right now i check alk every 3 or 4 days.. with Hanna checker.

i am waiting on my supplies from BRS to start dosing..


Thax for ur help

 

[Ron Reefman]

Happy to help out. If you have more questions, just ask. I've done all kinds of dosing back when I had 4 tanks.

 

[kamla]

Happy to help out. If you have more questions, just ask. I've done all kinds of dosing back when I had 4 tanks.

4 tanks !!

This hobby is so addictive

I have 2 now
1 reef and 1 fresh planted

 

[Ron Reefman]

I had a 180g mixed reef attached to a 75g hexagon that served several different roles, but was an anemone tank for a long time and they shared a 180g (10'x2'x16") sump/refugium/DSB. And then in my 'reef room' I had a 65g shallow reef (4'x2'x14") with mostly local collected stuff from the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Keys. It shared a 120g sump/refugium with a 25g frag tank.

In fact the wife and I intend to go to a local beach and drag a pool net through the grassy flats in the shallows just off the beach. We collected a lot of things out there in the past. Like shrimp, dwarf sea horses, pipe fish, puffers, file fish, flounders and one day we caught enough Blue Crabs (in season) to make lunch! But Hurricane Irma moved a lot of sand around a couple of years ago and last summer's Red Tide may have made things even worse. We haven't been there since last spring, so we'll see. Next month we'll be snorkeling and collecting (with licences) in the Keys. You can read about it here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/snorkeling-collecting-discussion-group.412414/

 

[Art2249]

I have a IM 20 for QT. It only hold 16 gallons when empty. I also have a IM 25. It only holds 18 gallons.
When I set up the display tank I calculated the water volume based on how much salt it took. So the tank and sump hold 200 gallons but it only took 80 cups of red sea blue bucket so I estimated the rock displaced 40 gallons.