Dilution of liquid supplements for fractional dosing

[Squist]

Picked up an inexpensive Jebao DP-4 for supplement dosing. The pump is imprecise and I have a small system--so overdosing is a concern. Under-dosing is preferred and better than what I have been doing: none at all.

I plan to dilute supplements (trace elements, Microbacter7, similar; not food) to a desired concentration to provide small daily doses of supplements otherwise too concentrated out-of-bottle for an inexpensive/imprecise dosing pump to accurately dose.

Just cut the supplement product with RODI to the desired ratio? Any tips?

I figure I'll mix what I need for a month's supply.

 

[Meshmez]

Microbacter likely would need to be diluted with saltwater.
How much are you planning on dosing a day? I would assume most things don't need to be 100% precise.

 

[max_nano]

I have diluted my 2 part and nitrates. 500mL of product and 1500mL of rodi just to make dosing easier in a small volume tank. ATI suggests doing it with their products. Based on that I would assume you should be okay to dillute the trace, but for the bacteria I agree with meshmez. Maybe you can contact their support and ask?

What benefit does dosing bacteria daily bring? Couldn’t you dose carbon and feed your existing bacteria instead?

 

[sfsuphysics]

Microbacter likely would need to be diluted with saltwater.

Not quite sure this would work, I think the non-refrigerated shelf life of the product is due to the bacteria effectively being in "stasis", and adding it to salt water brings it back out of stasis which you would think would be fine but with no available food in whatever dosing container you have they'd end up dying off. That said, Microbactr isn't exactly a product you really dose except when starting a tank up isn't it?

 

[Squist]

Microbacter likely would need to be diluted with saltwater.
How much are you planning on dosing a day? I would assume most things don't need to be 100% precise.

Not quite sure this would work, I think the non-refrigerated shelf life of the product is due to the bacteria effectively being in "stasis", and adding it to salt water brings it back out of stasis which you would think would be fine but with no available food in whatever dosing container you have they'd end up dying off. That said, Microbactr isn't exactly a product you really dose except when starting a tank up isn't it?

Brightwell indicates it's used for starting a tank, yes, and can be used to maintain systems at 1 drop/50 gal daily. I have a 65 gal system, so we're talking about a ridiculously small amount.

To maintain a low concentration of available nutrients in all marine and freshwater aquaria, 5 ml (1 capful) of MicrōBacter7 per 50 US-gallons (189.3 L) [≈2 drops per gallon (3.8 L)] of aquarium water no more than once each week; alternately, add 1 drop per 50 US-gallons daily (or 1 drop per 25 US-gallons every other day). https://www.brightwellaquatics.com/products/microbacter7t.php​

I have left-over Microbacter7, an available dosing head, substrate, and detritus so I thought I'd try metering it.

I get that dilution isn't an option. That's good to know and makes sense. Thanks for your suggestions!

 

[Squist]

Found it! Jebao has an interval setting to space dosing so it’s not daily. “Dose every X days.” Duurrrr. Could’ve read the manual first.

 

[max_nano]

Found it! Jebao has an interval setting to space dosing so it’s not daily. “Dose every X days.” Duurrrr. Could’ve read the manual first.

Sounds like a good option. Maybe do the once a week? Although it may cloud the tank a bit if it’s all at once?

Once you finish off the micro Bacter, if you like the results this sounds similar to the result you would get from carbon dosing so you could consider that. It sounds like both work to increase the bacteria population

 

[sfsuphysics]

Found it! Jebao has an interval setting to space dosing so it’s not daily. “Dose every X days.” Duurrrr. Could’ve read the manual first.

Don't feel bad, I would have been willing to bet money that that from translating from the original language (Traditional Chinese maybe?) to English it would have been so badly broken that it would have made little sense. Guess I would have lost money there