New to Dosing

Goose1505 · Jan 18, 2016

I just received my 2 part solution and mixed it all up ready to dose.

However this may be a stupid question but I'll try anyway. I don't have the proper test to test calc alk and mag. Looking into getting them in a couple weeks. My question is can I dose a little bit without over doing it until I get the tests?

I know my calc is probably low due to the fact that I received some frags on some rocks with a lot of corilline algae on it and now it has faded over the last month.

My tank is a 50g cube with 10g sump, 50lbs of live rock with about a 1 inch sandbed. My guess is my total tank water volume would be around 45 ish gallons. Unless someone can guess otherwise. Thanks in advance.

surfnsalt · Jan 18, 2016

Really should test to see where your parameters are first. Then start dosing, follow recommendations. Start slow.

Goose1505 · Jan 18, 2016

That's what I had figured. Thanks for the input. I appreciate it.

klesel · Jan 18, 2016

Yes test for sure never dose something you can test for .and use a quality test kit and never guess your amounts it will wipe your tank out .

samba_dad · Jan 18, 2016

klesel said:
Yes test for sure never dose something you can test for .and use a quality test kit and never guess your amounts it will wipe your tank out .

+1 here. Measure before testing. Do water changes in the interim and you should be fine.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 19, 2016

In this sort of scenario, the first thing to test for is alkalinity. If it is not depleted, calcium and magnesium won't be either. They will reflect what is int he salt mix.

If alkalinity is depleted, then you can roughly maintain all of these just by maintaining alkalinity, at least for a while. That will keep the levels of calcium and magnesium at about what they are in the salt mix.

Over a longer period of time, I'd check calcium to to make sure that it doesn't need an upward or downward correction but it need not be tested as often as alk, and you should not alter calcium dosing based on small changes in calcium (say, 10-20 ppm) over a short period of time since calcium tests have some variability.

Magnesium is VERY slow to deplete and the comments for calcium apply much more so. Given the problems many folks have with magnesium testing and how slow it is to deplete, I think a lot of begionners would be better off simply dosing it at the rate recommended by the two part recipe (or included in the a two part like B-ionic or a CaCO3/CO2 reactor where you do not even have independent control of it). Definitely do not overreact to short term changes. If you deplete 2 ppm per day, that would be at the high end and would only go along with calcium depletion rates of 20 ppm per day or so.