New to Corals - Dosing Question

[jbilliel]

I am new to corals and not sure how best to go about dosing the Alk and calcium. I have Kalkwasser and can put it in my ATO, but what are people using to test the parameters? I can't see myself doing it by hand without it getting very old. I see the Hanna tester kit for $250, but should I just spend another $300 and do the Trident as I already have an APEX? I plan on starting very small as I have never done a reef before. perhaps this is overkill given once you know the usage, you don't need to be testing it all the time?

Any thoughts on how to get started?

 

[Bryknicks]

Can you provide your tank size, and what coral you have? As you are new to coral and most likely don't have any high demand corals you can just use water changes to keep your levels up. I'm not sure what Hanna testing kit you saw for $250 but you will only need to test for a few important things once the tank is established. This would be alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, nitrates, and phosphates. I would not start dosing anything until you have good test kits and monitor the uptake by the corals.

 

[jbilliel]

I have a 90 gallon with sump and no coral yet. I am just trying to get the knowledge and equipment, if necessary, before I jump in.

 

[Bryknicks]

What are your coral plans? Softies, LPS, SPS, mixed? Much of what you are asking depends on what you plans to keep in the tank. It will be some time before you would need to start thinking of dosing anything unless you buy colonies instead of frags to begin with.

 

[LesPoissons]

+1 Especially if you’re starting small or with frogs, you may not need to start dosing for a very long time. But I would recommend if you can’ afford it to just get the Trident system. Ive just started dosing and am personally using the Hanna checkers and it’s a huge pain- Especially when you’re just starting out and you’re really trying to get things established and figure out all your parameters- all the manual testing Is really frustrating.

 

[LesPoissons]

*frags

 

[jbilliel]

I am going to start with a few softies as I am a true saltwater rookie and don't want to invest too much money and kill them all. lol

 

[Bryknicks]

Then you will be good. I went 3-4 years with my first tank without needing to dose and my corals all grew fast. All I did was 10% water changes every 1-2 weeks. This tank had softies, LPS, and eventually a couple SPS.

 

[jbilliel]

Excellent - Thank you for your insights!

 

[Saltyreef]

+1. Water changes for now.
I dont even think kalkwasser in the ato is necissary yet.
Unless you have abnormally low ph(below 7.9) and want a little boost.
Youll need to closely monitor demand after selecting coral but beware, if you buy more coral later after already calculating demand based on your test results, your demand will slowly start increasing.

It will make sense sooner or later...i swear! Lol

You likely wont start to dose a 90gal until you get upwards of 25-30 1" frags. Or a big colony of something.

 

[PatW]

With softies, you will not need to do much if any dosing of ALK and Ca. Water changes should pretty much do that. The corals, primarily SPS corals, that have hard skeletons of calcium carbonate use ALK and Ca to make their skeletons. So dosing and keeping close tabs of ALK becomes critical.

As for test kits, Red Sea Pro or Salifert should fill your testing needs.

Something to be aware of with soft corals, they use chemical warfare to compete. If you are going full softy, you might plan on a reactor for activated charcoal to keep the chemical load down.