Yet another question... Dosing?

[That New Guy]

As I read, and read, and read... I keep coming up with more questions. I'm on my 5th or 6th tank. I've kept tanks over the course of about 5 years, so I'm not exactly a noob.

This is the first tank where my desire is higher end corals. In the past I've been fine with basic lps/sps/softies, never too concerned with color or growth so much as it staying alive.

To the point: Is dosing necessary to maintain healthy/happy/colorful corals?

 

[nereefpat]

To the point: Is dosing necessary to maintain healthy/happy/colorful corals?

What is necessary is that levels of alk, Ca, and to a lesser extent Mg remain in spec. You have to test to make decisions about additions.

Levels can be maintained using a combination of water changes, limewater, and one part supplements.

 

[mpyers]

If you're going after the hardest to keep things, then it's either dosing. Or making sure you test and dose manually daily. You can get one for less than $100. I would say get it. Won't hurt.

 

[thegrun]

It will depend on what high end corals you keep, there are plenty of zoas and other soft high end corals that would most likely would not require any dosing. If you are referring to SPS and other high end stony corals it would still depend on how many of those corals you kept as to the need for dosing. Once the demand of the corals for calcium and alkalinity exceed the quantity added via water changes some type of dosing is needed. You can still dose daily by hand at that point, but the stability of using a dosing pump that can dose several times a day does help keep a nice constant level of calcium and alkalinity which is beneficial to the corals.

 

[That New Guy]

Thanks for the responses. Forgive my ignorance, but does an automatic dosing pump just continuously pump a predetermined amount of supplement? I am not aware of any way to test calcium/alk/etc on demand, so I'm assuming it's just constantly pumping a small amount?

Thanks again for the help. I'm just trying to justify the $1300 I'm about to spend on an Apex Fusion and DOS & DDR dosing setup.

 

[Tanthaitrung]

Yes, the dosing pump will do that.

I would test CAL, MAG, ALK etc once a week. Those let me know the loss and set the dosing pump as needed. It can be adjusted the amount and can be extended many doser heads.

Hope this helps
Khanh

 

[SFish]

You could pick up some dosing pumps and put them on trimmers. Like these cheaper then $1300

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-2-part-doser-1-1-ml-per-minute.html

 

[Ron Reefman]

New Guy, unless you REALLY want an Apex, you don't need to spend anything close to that kind of money. I got a referbished medical grade dosing pump from this guy:
http://www.reefdosingpumps.com/
He sells on Ebay as well and I got a 2nd doser for under $100.

 

[Raibaru]

Dosing is an alternative to running a Calcium reactor, right?

The calcium reactor basically drips a set amount of calcium and magnesium into the tank that you test for initially but once set is kind of just doing its own thing until you need to refill it with media or CO2?

Dosing on the other hand is when you pre-mix a solution and the pump takes those premixed solutions and drops them into the tank on set intervals? So it's basically a more fine tuned method than a calcium reactor?

And then if all the above is correct, the primary worry with Calcium and Magnesium is a shortage of each right?

 

[Sk8r]

And I just fix the levels of all three, then put kalk powder in my autotopoff reservoir and check the magnesium fairly faithfully. All of these methods work nicely: some require more hands on intervention than others.