pulpfiction
Active Member
Are there non softcorals that do well in a no dose tank? Would a duncan or candy cane coral thrive? I only do weekly water changes to replenish elements and minerals.
No dose tank corals
- Thread starter pulpfiction
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mfinn
likes zoanthids
I've done tanks with no extra dosing with several types of euphyllia that have grown into large colonies.
pulpfiction
Active Member
Oh what I thought only soft corals could live in no dose tank lol
Spare time
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That greatly depends on the density of the coral population, the size of the tank, the growth, rates, etc.
Spare time
10K Club member
Why do you wish to avoid dosing? Eventually, all tanks benefit from some dosing or you just end up spending massive amounts of money on water changes when you could just pour a bit of a liquid in. You can also run into the issue o bottoming out nitrogen and phosphate because you have to keep doing big water changes to replenish elements when those two are lacking. Dosing is extremely easy. I dose a 100ml a day of all for reef and I am done. Keep in mind too that water changes are often stressful for the inhabitants so if you have to constantly do large water changes then you would be constantly stressing out the inhabitants. I am not arguing against water changes but that they are impractical when a tanks element consumption beings to elevate (be that from corals, coralline, macroalgae, etc.).
pulpfiction
Active Member
I'm going for a low maintenance tank and I'm still intimidated by dosing.
dedragon
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There is lower maintenance dosing that you could do. I would start with an all in one dosing if you wanted low maintenance. Just do the recommended dose of all for reef (or similar product) once a day when you feed your fish. Later you can lower maintenance by just putting a timer (I like the amazon smart plugs for this) on a dosing pump and having it done for you. All the maintenance you do is add fluid to the dosing container whenever it gets empty.
thatmanMIKEson
Reefing ain't easy$
If your successful for an extended amount of time, coraline algae will force you to start dosing without corals if your trying to stay at ANY particular value IME. Unless it's a 5 gallon system and you do 5 gallon waterchanges. (Or any size system with 100% w.c's)
pulpfiction
Active Member
For now my tank only has 7 soft coral frags and it isnt consuming alot of mag alk or cal.
Yeah, this tank I believe is 200% the exception not the rule. I grew a bunch of sps previously that I fragged(when I dosed and did maintenance) that eventually died, while still doing maintenance. The mushroom leather I had was huge, then it started fragging itself and died. Same breeding clowns and k St had to put my YWG down s couple months ago after 6+ years and 3 tank moves. 1 move was 8+ hours
Spare time
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Dosing is far less maintenance as a tank ages and gets filled. You just test one day at 5pm, then the next day at 5pm and dose how much was lost. Eventually you can get on a routine and only need to test once a week or so for alk and even less frequently for other things. You can also just use an all in one solution like all for reef. Of course you won't need to dose when there are very few corals and they are all tiny, or if you have very little coralline algae, but eventually there comes a tipping point. By that time dosing shouldn't seem like much.
KrisReef
10K Club member
If you are doing water changes with high alk and Calc you may be fine for a long time because the Candy Cane and Duncan could probably handle the situation better than an acropora would. I don't know what percentage of water you change per week, but if you did a 50-75 % change a couple times a year those corals would likely survive and maybe thrive.
Just don't bring home any tenius.
pulpfiction
Active Member
I did have my alk go too low when I was doing a water change every 2 weeks and lost my clove polyps that were taking off. I also ticked off my ricordea that's slowly coming back. Doing every week has kept parameters in check. I'm not feeling more ambitious than a candy cane or duncan coral. I'm still aiming for easy corals to grow out. I also run a pretty low light system so tenius or acros probably wouldn't do well in my tank.
My coralline algae is taking off and rapidly covering my rocks. I'm not seeing swigs yet except when I did water changes too far apart. I do a 20-30% change a week on a 20 gallon.
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