What supplements to dose?

[Cassian]

I got a doser for my new 65 gallon tall reef setup. It has four dosing pumps on it. What four additives would you suggest that I dose for SPS and LPS? I was planning to do Calcium and Magnesium, what other two are the most important?
thanks!!

 

[geddavis]

Calcium alkalinity magnisium and maby some food like phytoplankton or even carbon like nopox

 

[Cassian]

Calcium alkalinity magnisium and maby some food like phytoplankton or even carbon like nopox

thank you! Just curious, do you not find strontium important to dose? I see a lot of people dose that.

 

[lafayettereefer]

Please dont go dosing something you dont test for. With appropriate test kits I would dose the big 3, and possibly nitrates.

 

[Gonebad395]

Yeah a new 65 gallon tank shouldn’t need dosing for awhile. Just how new is the tank what corals do you have in it? Also dosing the wrong amount of supplements can be devistating to a tank and it’s inhabitants. Give us some information on your tank please

 

[PatW]

Unless you have hard corals that are growing, you should not need to dose. Water changes should keep things stable. Get a good ALK and a good Ca test kit. Test weekly. If the numbers drift down over time, then you will need to dose. And I find it easier to dose by hand until the consumption gets pretty high. You will have to have some large growing SPS colonies or a clam before you need to start dosing.

 

[tupes]

Agree with all the others.
Example:

• Test today and get your Ca reading of 420
• Test in 2 days again. If you get close to 420 test again in a week
• If I a week you are only around 400 you dont need to be dosing.
• Just do water changes and you will be good
• Do this for any element you want to dose and only dose what you are testing for and please dont go buy API kit because it's cheap.

Get a salifert, RedSea or hanna instruments checker.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

thank you! Just curious, do you not find strontium important to dose? I see a lot of people dose that.

I do not think it useful.

Magnesium can be on a doser, but need not be as it is very slow to deplete. So manual dosing of it is fine.

Alk is the most useful to be on a doser due to the desirability of stability of it.

 

[jtl]

My tank has been up and running for 1.5 years and all I do is weekly water changes and 1 tsp of pickling lime per gallon of top off water. I have mostly lps but some sps.

 

[capt.dave]

I would start with Kalkwasser in top off water. Especially in the first few years and with a light coral load. The big advantages are that it's very cheap and doses alkalinity and calcium in balance. I buy Mrs Wages pickling lime on Amazon. Start with a small dose, maybe a teaspoon per gallon of RODI top off. Test and increase SLOWLY to up to 2 tsp per gallon, which is fully saturated.

Caution! Kalkwasser is very high pH (10+). Dose it into a sump. I STRONGLY recommend using a tank controller like an Apex or a Reefkeeper that can monitor pH and set it to shut off the top off pump if pH rises too much. I set mine for off at 7.6 and on at 7.4. it cycles on and off a couple times a day. The point is, you can nuke your tank if your top off pump fails on and pumps 5 gallons of kalk into your tank. But with a controller it's a very safe and balanced way to dose alk and Ca.

BRS TV has a great episode on it. You should look it up.