Poll: How Do You Dose?

dbl · Aug 28, 2017

Curious to see how everyone is dosing. Just looking at the mechanics of dosing, not the products, amounts or quantity dosed. So let us know how you accomplish you're dosing requirements in your reef.

Scurvy · Aug 28, 2017

I use Kalk via its own reservoir/dosing pumphourly from midnight to 8am to keep PH up. Then 3ml of Calc/Alk four times from 8am to midnight.

Velcro · Aug 28, 2017

Needs a kalk stirrer fed by dosing pump option.

tdileo · Aug 28, 2017

I dose some calcium, alkalinity and trace elements a few times a week by hand.

jsker · Aug 28, 2017

I dose the balling method with auto doser. I dose 8 times a day to spread out the dose and have great consistency with my numbers i have found.

Luis Figueroa · Aug 28, 2017

jsker said:
I dose the balling method with auto doser. I dose 8 times a day to spread out the dose and have great consistency with my numbers i have found.

I do the exact same method and dosage. my question I have is how many ml do you dose per increments? I'm at around 30 ml for calcium broken down to 8 times a day and alk is around the same. I'm have problems with salinity being raised and just trying to find the problem.

smh254 · Aug 28, 2017

I dose 30 ml cal, alk and 6 ml of mag a day. this is on a 40b.

jsker · Aug 28, 2017

Luis Figueroa said:
I do the exact same method and dosage. my question I have is how many ml do you dose per increments? I'm at around 30 ml for calcium broken down to 8 times a day and alk is around the same. I'm have problems with salinity being raised and just trying to find the problem.

I have 80g of water volume, and dose 32ml daily, broken up into 4ml doses. I dose AF 1+2+3+ mixing my own. does your temperature vary? My salinity will rise but only .1 to .2 conductivity. All the elements are considered salts, again will raise salinity a slight amount. I adjust my salinity via the ATO and drain a tad bit of water out and the ato will fill.

flagg37 · Aug 28, 2017

Fully saturated kalkwasser dosed via Apex DOS and CARx.

zachxlutz · Aug 28, 2017

I dose BRS two part via BRS 1.1ml dosers at a rate of .2 dkh/1.39ppm daily and supplement Mag when needed manually.

Luis Figueroa · Aug 28, 2017

jsker said:
I have 80g of water volume, and dose 32ml daily, broken up into 4ml doses. I dose AF 1+2+3+ mixing my own. does your temperature vary? My salinity will rise but only .1 to .2 conductivity. All the elements are considered salts, again will raise salinity a slight amount. I adjust my salinity via the ATO and drain a tad bit of water out and the ato will fill.

wow, I have about 32 gallons twv. did you mean .01 or .1? I've done a wc and literally 12 hours later it rose .02 - .03. my temp is 77.5 i raised that about 2 weeks ago up from 75. I'm guessing I'm dosing too much and causing my salt to go up.

jsker · Aug 28, 2017

Luis Figueroa said:
wow, I have about 32 gallons twv. did you mean .01 or .1? I've done a wc and literally 12 hours later it rose .02 - .03. my temp is 77.5 i raised that about 2 weeks ago up from 75. I'm guessing I'm dosing too much and causing my salt to go up.

32ml daily in 4ml increments , I was dosing 50+ until I balanced all three out and spread out the dosing. I keep the system at 78.3 ish at 1.025 or 33. conductivity. Are you checking your conductivity via controller or salinity via refractometer? I use a formula for the salt I use and the formula is pretty close but I have to adjust up or down a gram of two for water changes. I use a scale to weight the salt.

Holy_makerel · Aug 28, 2017

I use a 4 head doser and dose kalk, ca, alk, and use the 4th head as my ATO.

Luis Figueroa · Aug 28, 2017

jsker said:
32ml daily in 4ml increments , I was dosing 50+ until I balanced all three out and spread out the dosing. I keep the system at 78.3 ish at 1.025 or 33. conductivity. Are you checking your conductivity via controller or salinity via refractometer? I use a formula for the salt I use and the formula is pretty close but I have to adjust up or down a gram of two for water changes. I use a scale to weight the salt.

32 ml is where it sits at now it was higher but my salinity is checked by a refractometer which I calibrate using ro water. I'm buying new a new test kit for the 3 main parameters after my findings this afternoon. last night I checked .CA it was 519 (possible but maybe not) took it offline for 12 hours which ending at 1130 am today. checked it when I went to lunch .CA read 520 and that was the 2nd test, the first one showed 600. it's a Hanna checker so I'm going back to red sea for now.

Luis Figueroa · Aug 28, 2017

I don't do wc hardly ever now after seeing and reading discussion of benefits to aquariums if you do or dont.

GoVols · Aug 28, 2017

I was using Apex DOS pumps for years.

Stumbled into the Red Sea ABC+ powder and dose it by hand with "Colors" C & D.

So now, I hand dose the ABC+ powder with "Colors" C & D.
(The ABC+ powder raises all your big 3 at once and already has "Colors" A & B, in that product.

And hand dose 15ml's of both parts of "Reef Energy" just about every evening.

Love the DOS pumps but they have been collecting dust since last October.

Many ways to skin a cat...

jsker · Aug 28, 2017

Luis Figueroa said:
I don't do wc hardly ever now after seeing and reading discussion of benefits to aquariums if you do or dont.

I was trying to stretch out the water changes for a bit, but discovered that my system did better with more frequent water changes. I was doing a water change every three weeks and went back to every week to deal with a cyno outbreak and diatoms.