Reef nutrition

Dosing - Dosers - Stability

fishy408

fishy408

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Not sure how to title this thread but I had a few questions about a "dosing system"

For the past month I've been trying to stabilize my tank. (No new corals or fishes). I've been only dosing Red Sea Foundation B (alk) at 5ML a day manually. This kept my tank at 8.0 which is my target. Calicum dropped from 470 to 460 in 3 weeks. Mag dropped from 1470 to 1440 in 3 weeks also. The usage of calcium and magnesium seems to be very low without dosing. I'm curious if dosing Alk also increases calicum or magnesium? For water changes, 1/month 30 gallons or about 25%.

Doser: I'm thinking about the GHL SA and read great reviews about the reliability. Does the cost increase the reliability?

Dosing Supplements Systems I'm considering: (Trition, ATI essentials, Aqua Forest and Red Sea). I'm thinking about crossing out Triton due to it always being out of stock.

Corals: Once the dosing system is in place, I do plan on adding Acros :). The montipora cap corals seems to be growing, and the ones that were dying initially, are growing it's flesh back :).

I guess the question is, I'm looking for an easy and reliable system to keep my reef stable.

thanks!
 
I love my GHL. The reliability plus the precise dosing, never misses a beat.
Also has an alarm to notify once you reach a certain level to refill the container, and has the capability to use stirrers.
If you dont need to dose a element everyday, you can set certain days of the week to dose.

Bit more pricey but well worth it IMO.
 
dpc goes west said:
I love my GHL. The reliability plus the precise dosing, never misses a beat.
Also has an alarm to notify once you reach a certain level to refill the container, and has the capability to use stirrers.
If you dont need to dose a element everyday, you can set certain days of the week to dose.

Bit more pricey but well worth it IMO.
Click to expand...
What are you dosing on the 4 heads?

Thanks!

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I had alkalinity stability issues, especially alkalinity dropping overnight, until I started using a doser and dosing alkalinity hourly. Since I have a light load of corals, I cut the balanced additives 50/50 with RO/DI to fit in 24 doses.


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Can't you dose like 1ml or whatever is needed by the hour and not mix the rodi? I'm not understanding the mixing with rodi.

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I had alkalinity stability issues, especially alkalinity dropping overnight, until I started using a doser and dosing alkalinity hourly. Since I have a light load of corals, I cut the balanced additives 50/50 with RO/DI to fit in 24 doses.


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Let's say for my case, I'm dosing 5ml a day. Is there a minimum dose level per hour limited by the doser? Would I have to mix it with rodi in order to make diluted doses to spread the 5 ml across 24hrs.

Thanks

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fishy408 said:
Let's say for my case, I'm dosing 5ml a day. Is there a minimum dose level per hour limited by the doser? Would I have to mix it with rodi in order to make diluted doses to spread the 5 ml across 24hrs.

Thanks

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Click to expand...
Yes. 1 mL is the smallest dose I can meter at one time. Since 24 mL of full strength additives per day would be too much, I have to dilute it.


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Thanks! That really helped. I didn't know the minimum was 1ml.

Is it possible in my case to dose 1ml every 4hrs to get 6ml dos in 24hrs.

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fishy408 said:
Thanks! That really helped. I didn't know the minimum was 1ml.

Is it possible in my case to dose 1ml every 4hrs to get 6ml dos in 24hrs.

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Click to expand...
Yes, most dosers let you control which days to run the program and let you set from 1-24 times and amounts. I use a Jebao 4-Channel, which is an obvious cheap knockoff of the Bubble Magus. It has a tiny 2 x 12 character LCD display and Up/Down/Left/Right/Enter buttons, so programming is pretty primitive, but it’s been accurate and reliable.

In your case you could do 6 1 ml doses and choose what times to do them. For example my alkalinity doses are every hour on the :00 and my calcium doses are every hour on the :30.


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The end of the tubes are going into the sump. They should be above the water line? And when the returns pump is turned off, the sump water line goes up also. So the return lines should be above both water lines.

So many videos watched, none shows where the additives are released into the sump.

Also, noticed that there is a tube holder for dosing that attaches to the sump. Are these purchased separately or are they included with the doser?

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Also have them so the two tubes cannot touch.
I read that you should dose into an area of high flow but I don’t really have high flow Except where my drains are and I don’t want to dose there because it is my skimmer compartment. I dose in my return section above my return pump hopefully it will not cause problems in the pump. I’m interested to hear what other people say
 
Do not put the Alk tube in the tank water.
It will form small deposits and clog.
Even out of the water, it forms little branching deposits that need to be cleaned.

The problem is that Alk/Ca are very high concentration as they drip out, so
precipitate can form unless it disperses quickly.
So you want it in high flow, or at least not zero flow.
 
Missed your question before - You will have to check the doser you select to see if it comes with tube holders. Mine did not. I drilled holes in an old powerhead hanger and clipped it to an inner lip of my sump. You will have to see what your sump is like.
IMG_2401.jpg
 
I really like my DOS. It’s really easy to program with your apex. It does require an apex though. It’s not one of their stand alone products.

I just dosed into my return chamber where it quickly got sucked up the return pump. Dosing 1ml at a time you shouldn’t have any precipitation problems.

I didn’t know the placement either and stuck them in the water. It wasn’t long before I had a huge clump blocking the end of it.
 
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