How would you dose my tank?

[Dinwooj]

I have a RedSea Reefer 300 G2 (70 gallon system) which is fully cycled and has 12 soft corals and 6 small fish, all of wish are doing well. Naturally I want to experiment with some LPS corals to give the top of my aqua scape some colour and movement (looking at euphyllia predominantly). I currently do not dose my tank but imagine I will need to (or be ready to). What steps would you take? I.e. what dosing method & equipment would you use ? Recommended test kits etc? Thank you!

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

The first step I would take is get a good log of your levels so that you can start seeing patterns in your tanks consumption of the core nutrients (phosphates, nitrates, Alk, Calcium and magnesium). Many people use regular hanna checkers to monitor but if you have the money to spare a trident gives you 'reasonable' close monitoring. Next you would have to invest in dosing pumps. I have a couple of Kamoer X-1s which are great which pull from your vessels of solution that have your dosing information. Finally, take your consumption and set up a dosing schedule to try to keep items in balance. Takes a couple of months to get it right..so just make sure that part of your weekly maintenance that you are potentially adjusting your dose based on conditions.

 

[Dinwooj]

The first step I would take is get a good log of your levels so that you can start seeing patterns in your tanks consumption of the core nutrients (phosphates, nitrates, Alk, Calcium and magnesium). Many people use regular hanna checkers to monitor but if you have the money to spare a trident gives you 'reasonable' close monitoring. Next you would have to invest in dosing pumps. I have a couple of Kamoer X-1s which are great which pull from your vessels of solution that have your dosing information. Finally, take your consumption and set up a dosing schedule to try to keep items in balance. Takes a couple of months to get it right..so just make sure that part of your weekly maintenance that you are potentially adjusting your dose based on conditions.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Would you test all of those nutrients? A Hanna checker at £70 each is expensive, especially if I need to buy 5. Any way of making that more efficient?

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

Thanks for the detailed reply. Would you test all of those nutrients? A Hanna checker at £70 each is expensive, especially if I need to buy 5. Any way of making that more efficient?

Alk, Nitrate and Phosphates are the big three...so that should save your some bucks right there. What are you planning on dosing for alkalinity and calcium? If you are doing kalk, you can probably just do alkalinity as alk and calcium are generally consumed 'equally'. As such, get one in check and the other should generally be in check and you can do a spot check every now and then with an API for calcium.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have a RedSea Reefer 300 G2 (70 gallon system) which is fully cycled and has 12 soft corals and 6 small fish, all of wish are doing well. Naturally I want to experiment with some LPS corals to give the top of my aqua scape some colour and movement (looking at euphyllia predominantly). I currently do not dose my tank but imagine I will need to (or be ready to). What steps would you take? I.e. what dosing method & equipment would you use ? Recommended test kits etc? Thank you!

For LPS, I manually dose and I let the test kits determine dosing needs. I also have a Trident which monitors alk-CA=Mag

 

[nereefpat]

Thanks for the detailed reply. Would you test all of those nutrients? A Hanna checker at £70 each is expensive, especially if I need to buy 5. Any way of making that more efficient?

At minimum, you should test for alk and Ca if keeping stony corals. Those kits can actually be pretty cheap. I wouldn't use Hanna for either of those. Liquid titration kits like Salifert, API, etc.