New Nano - Need Help With Dosing

[WestaMan]

Hey Guys,

I've been browsing for a while and been able to get decent help from our LFS. At this point, we are starting to add corals going on our 4th week this weekend in the cycle. I have a few questions about dosing and how to structure it.

I've already learned that I need to pour the calcium slowly over the powerhead because right now I have a cloudy mixture that sounds like precipitation in my tank. I'm waiting that out since it's been going for about 2 days so far.

My biggest questions relate to when to dose what. From talking to my LFS, I should get my alkalinity to where I want it to be, then dose Calcium, then Magnesium. Does this sound accurate? I know that I don't want to dose multiple at the same time to prevent a reaction. How long do you need to wait? It sounds like alkalinity is best dosed in the morning before the lights come on when the Ph is lowest. Can I dose multiple items in the same day as long as I wait a few hours? Would you go off of the initial test results or test before each dose in that day to make sure there are no other reactions to the other doses?

I'm sure this is all very basic, but since we're getting corals in the tank I want to give them what they need. From different stores they've got me set up on ReefRoids and Red Sea Reef Energy, but I'm holding off on those until I get a better understanding of the basics of dosing to limit the changes in the tank.

Thanks in advance for the insight and information!

 

[JumboShrimp]

I have a 7-gallon nano tank with a few basic mushrooms, leathers, Xenia, and Green Star Polyps, etc., so I am no expert. But I dose a few drops each (manually) of alk and calc into the powerhead stream just about 60 seconds apart. If I’m doing it wrong, someone here can tell ‘both’ of us. (Lol)

 

[reef lover]

Always best to not dose blindly...test your levles wait 24 hours check again...see how much you used . Go online to the brs reef calculator and type in your results as well as your products of choice and brs will tell you what your reef used in 24 hours.
When you do dose try to break it up into as many small doses as you can and pour in to a high flow area....hth

 

[WestaMan]

Always best to not dose blindly...test your levles wait 24 hours check again...see how much you used . Go online to the brs reef calculator and type in your results as well as your products of choice and brs will tell you what your reef used in 24 hours.
When you do dose try to break it up into as many small doses as you can and pour in to a high flow area....hth

Do you dose all 3 if needed the same day and how long in between if so? Any specific order?

 

[Luno]

I would check your levels Mate, I got away without dosing anything doing weekly water changes on a 15g cube for a while before I started adding sps. But once you add corals they will start to uptake and you will need to dose. So as said before just test, dose and test again later.

As for adding alk,cal and mag. You can do all literally one after the other if you want, there's no real issue. Mag you'll barely need to dose. Alk will be your main one so after a bit you will want to try and spilt it into multiple doses so that you can keep it as stable as possible. As a rule of thumb for me anything of 1dkh or more change in one go is too high for my liking.