Manual Dosing for SPS tank.

[evolutionZ]

Hey fellas, i know most of you guys who have SPS tank or sps dominated tank either have dosing pump running or calcium reactor.

Would like to know if anyone because of certain reason, happen to do manual dosing?

I myself have to mix calcium and baking soda every few days to dose. Each time i increase my ca by 20ppm and kH by 0.6-1dkh.

Was wondering if anyone successfully did the same on a SPS tank.

 

[biggles]

I run an SPS reef and manually dose every day. I fill a container with 1/2 gallon of RO water and then add the daily dose of alk to that and drip it in high flow in the sump over 20 hrs or so. I make up a 1 gal batch of alk and just take the daily dose from that to add to my RO water. The cheapest doser i've seen in Aus is around $300- and i've read reefers woes when goofs result in days worth of alk being overdosed by the unit so i'll stick to the couple of minutes a morning it takes to fill the daily dose.
If your lifestyle benefits from using a dosing machine or you just want to use one i say go for it, each to their own.

 

[MammothReefer]

I used to but it's not worth it.

 

[dowtish]

I used to manually dose as well. But the parameters were nowhere near as stable as they are now using BRS dosing pumps. The 24 hour lapse of me dosing at the same time everyday was too much of a swing IMO. And if I were to ever not be home or go out of town it would just make it worse. Save up $170 and get 2 1.1ml dosing pumps from BRS.

 

[LoJack]

I used to manually dose as well. But the parameters were nowhere near as stable as they are now using BRS dosing pumps. The 24 hour lapse of me dosing at the same time everyday was too much of a swing IMO. And if I were to ever not be home or go out of town it would just make it worse. Save up $170 and get 2 1.1ml dosing pumps from BRS.

+1 to this. a 1dKh swing in ALK is actually really big for SPS.

I dose my Alk and Cal over 3 seperate times in 24 hours to try and keep things as stable as possible.

I use the BRS Dosers also ... well worth the money. And it saves a ton of headache if you go out of town and have someone watching your tank. If you think someone can screw up a tank by overfeeding ... your neighbor can really screw your tank by overdosing lol

 

[rovster]

I manually dose my nano. I use C-balance. A cap of each at night, half a cap of each in the morning. Not a big deal, and parameters stay pretty stable (for a nano). I monitor Alk every few days via Salifert (and more rececently Hanna). I try to keep things within a 0.5dKH range. I have marked my test kits with ranges, so I don't know the exact number, as long as I'm within my range, I don't care. When I start to get to the limits of my target range, I adjust my dose up or down accordingly.

 

[evolutionZ]

Thanks guys for your posts.

Since i manually top up both DI water and CA/KH into my reef tank. i've decided to add enough mix to 7 1.5L bottles (i top up 1.5L to my reef tank each day to compensate for evaporation) so that i dose alternatively, 0.6dkh and 10ppm of ca every other day.

 

[sahin]

Member Big E does manual dosing. His SPS corals look amazing. Manual dosing is fine as long as you keep up with it daily. I would just say, that keep your alk and Ca dosing apart by a few hours at least. Maybe dose one in the evening and one in the morning etc.

 

[rovster]

Member Big E does manual dosing. His SPS corals look amazing. Manual dosing is fine as long as you keep up with it daily. I would just say, that keep your alk and Ca dosing apart by a few hours at least. Maybe dose one in the evening and one in the morning etc.

I've always waited 2-5 minutes between A and B, sometimes less if I'm in a rush. I dose in the return section of my AIO. Does it reallly make that much of a difference? My parameters stay pretty stable for a 14 gallon, and I've never dealt with any kind of precipitaion issue. Thanks in advance

 

[sanchoy]

Manual, dosing pump( disaster lost pump failure), calcium reactor ( never dialed in), back to manual.

 

[Epicreefer]

If you think about what you value your time at, say $20/hr then spending 10 min a day dosing is about $20 a week then a dollar a day for a year isn't too bad for a dosing system. Sure your time is not an actual cost but gives some perspective. I travel too much to get someone to come by and dose when I'm gone, so I automate everything, back in college with room mates and infrequent travel it all worked, I guess it depends on your lifestyle and how tethered to your tank you are.

With a small sps load I have found it entirely possible but like everything some corals do better and others die. I can't tell by your posts if you have sps or not but some can definitely withstand the alk swing (went on a 6 week vacation once and my 14g nano with a Bali tricolor did just fine on auto alk top off as only supplement) and grow so give it a try for a while and if you need to then invest the $300 at a later date.

 

[Finland]

I used to dose manually, but now use dosing pumps. One of the best things I have done for my tank.

 

[heatdissipation]

This is what I dose with. I can adjust it by .1 ml per hr if needed. I love this thing. Sure it can't be controlled with a controller, but I don't really need it to be controlled.

 

[shiladitya1991]

Sonny Harajly does it and he has spectacular growth

 

[evolutionZ]

Thanks guys, so far using my new method of manual dosing seems to be able to achieve much more stable parameters.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Well, this is certainly going to be a bit heretical, but I dose my nano manually, and it's with powdered Ca Cl & NaHCO3, not solutions. That said, I've very carefully calculated the consumption rate, and have the equipment to accurately weigh things in milligrams. I also use kalkwasser in this tank, so the amount of 2-part that I add is somewhat smaller than it would be otherwise. Kalkwasser, obviously, is dripped in.

 

[evolutionZ]

I also used powdered and measure with measuring spoons. I premix into my top up bottle and top up daily. Since I do not have both ATO and dosing pump

 

[padova335i]

i used to dump in 200 ml of alk, and 200 of calcium daily,, in 550 of water,., it got old quick (2 yrs) worked pretty well.. im now on dosers, what a lif saver!

 

[yano]

I dose manually all in my tanks ever...alk dose daily in the morning, ca 3 x week, and mg weekly.
Pumps doser or calcium reactors are a great help but it need maintenance too.

 

[zackw]

I dose daily in my frag tank right now, and its really annoying. Will be gettng a new doser soon!