Switching from BRS 2-part to ATI essentials

Joe Rice · Feb 28, 2018

Last night I began the switch-over to ATI essentials. Previously I've been using BRS alk, Ca, and Mg. About 4½ months ago I started manually dosing Red Sea ABCD for trace elements and stopped doing water changes. It's been a great success so far; but next week I'm leaving on vacation and have no way to dose the trace elements so figured I'd try a system where the trace elements are part of the basic "big 3" dosing solutions.

First thing I noticed is that I'm not getting the pH bump that I was getting with the BRS soda ash (sodium carbonate). Whereas my pH usually varied from 8.35 during the day to 8.18 at night, last night the pH went down to 7.92. Also there're no noticeable spikes when the alk dosing occur (every other hour on the odd hour.) I started the ATI Essentials right after that spike at 16:00 on Feb 27 in the graph below.

So this is already a bit of a concern.

Trying to keep things simple, I'm using 10 liter jugs for the solutions, both so that I don't have to refill as often and also so that I can mix the solutions in the dosing containers and cut down on washing buckets, transferring solutions, etc. The alk powder (#1) isn't super easy to dissolve - the instructions even mention that it helps to have warm (40° C) water - but I'm too lazy to go heating up water. Of course, #2 and #3 are already solutions so they mix with no effort at all.

My other concern is cost. 10 liters of ATI essentials cost $36. If it lasts a month, that's $432 a year. BRS alk, Ca, Mg, and Red Sea ABCD cost about half that (I buy the 5 gallon buckets of the BRS additives) but if the ATI is simpler or gets much better results I might be willing to spend the extra dollars.

Anyway, I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Denisk · Feb 28, 2018

I look forward to seeing the progress!

Enjoy the vacation!!!

Joe Rice · Mar 1, 2018

Night two and the pH only dropped to 8.01 vs. 7.92 the first night.

Dosing about 15% more by volume than I was of the BRS soda ash and Ca. Holding my alkalinity at 8.0 and calcium at 420.

Joe Rice · Apr 1, 2018

Well, it's been over a month now, so I figure it's time for an update:

Qualitatively, my corals look neither better nor worse than they did before. Growth rates are very difficult to determine over such a short period of time but when I returned from a 15 day vacation I definitely noticed some growth of my SPS.

My pH ranges from 8.03 at night to 8.20 during the day - very consistent day after day. My salinity does seem to rise over time which is fairly typical for sodium carbonate/calcium chloride based 2-part solutions. This has its upside, in my opinion, as it allows me to occasionally remove some water - possibly preventing buildup of any undesirable compounds. Right now I'm removing about 2 gallons of water per week and allowing it to be replaced with RO/DI water from my ATO system.

10 liters of the solutions lasted 4 weeks. Actually my Mg levels went up over the 15 days I was gone, so I dialed the dosing back for solution #3. One disadvantage of ATI essentials is that having to dial back the Mg dosing also reduces the dosing of whatever trace elements are in solution #3. Not sure if it matters but there it is.

Solution #1 - the alkalinity solution - is the only one that has to be mixed from powder. I was hoping to be able to just mix it in the 10 liter jugs that I use as dosing containers but I'm finding it tough to get the last bit to dissolve. Might have to revert to using a bucket and then pouring it into the jug.

So it's working for now and it's nice to only have to dose 3 things. The cost could eventually make me reconsider but I noticed BRS no longer sells the large size bulk 2-part components so the cost of my old way is also going up.

Joe Rice · Jun 19, 2018

A few observations at the 3½ months mark:

I did get a bit of cyano growth but it seems to have stabilized at a fairly low level. It likely has nothing to do with the switch to ATI Essentials but figured I should mention it.
Corals still seem to be growing nicely.
My Leng Sy montipora is greener than ever but I haven't noticed any other differences in coral coloration.
I am liking that I only have to mix up new solutions about once a month.
For solutions #2 (calc) and #3 (mag), I've switched from the 10 liter jug to the 4 liter slimline jugs from BRS. Since both #2 and #3 come as liquid solutions that just have to be diluted I figured I could dilute them less and just adjust the dosing rate. Seems to be working fine and the slimline jugs give me more space under the tank and allow me to more easily check the levels in the jugs.

Greybeard · Jun 19, 2018

Glad it's working out for you.

Price is one factor in selecting items for our reefs, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor. You find something that works for you, and pay the price. I'm using ESV B-Ionic... Why? Cause it works for me. Higher than BRS or food grade chems? Sure, but like I said, it works for me. Higher price doesn't always mean better, either... I was using Triton Core7 for a while, it was even more pricey than the ESV is, but it didn't work for me.

BTW: I've got that same 4 head doser. Working out for you? Honestly, I kinda like mine. I run the calibration routine every other month... it's generally right on, but it's fairly easy to do... worth checking, anyway. I do have one problem with it... I have a wifi network that has no security on it. I'm way out in the woods, nobody around to steal my wifi, no need to secure it. Apparently, you can't get this thing to join a wifi network without specifying a password. I have to join the doser wifi net to configure the doser, but it's not that big of a deal... since I need to do so rarely.

Joe Rice · Jun 19, 2018

Greybeard said:
Price is one factor in selecting items for our reefs, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor. You find something that works for you, and pay the price.

Agreed. And this is way more convenient for me than dosing the Red Sea ABCD elements manually every day. I suppose I could have put them on a 4-head doser but I try to minimize the number of moving parts (and thus possible points of failure) in my system.

I'm only using one head of the ReefBreeders dosing pump but so far so good. It's a bit loud but it doses pretty quickly compared to the single head dosing pumps I'm using for Ca and Alk so it hasn't really bothered me. And the app for setting it up is actually fairly well-designed and so much easier to program than the cheap Jebao doser. And if folks don't know, the 6-head doser that ATI sells is the same as the Jebao just with an extra 2 heads.

jphilip813 · Sep 14, 2019

Greybeard said:
Glad it's working out for you.

Price is one factor in selecting items for our reefs, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor. You find something that works for you, and pay the price. I'm using ESV B-Ionic... Why? Cause it works for me. Higher than BRS or food grade chems? Sure, but like I said, it works for me. Higher price doesn't always mean better, either... I was using Triton Core7 for a while, it was even more pricey than the ESV is, but it didn't work for me.

BTW: I've got that same 4 head doser. Working out for you? Honestly, I kinda like mine. I run the calibration routine every other month... it's generally right on, but it's fairly easy to do... worth checking, anyway. I do have one problem with it... I have a wifi network that has no security on it. I'm way out in the woods, nobody around to steal my wifi, no need to secure it. Apparently, you can't get this thing to join a wifi network without specifying a password. I have to join the doser wifi net to configure the doser, but it's not that big of a deal... since I need to do so rarely.

Question, how loud are the motors? Are they silent? I am looking t purchase a dosing unit, not too expensive...but will also work with the APEX system if possible.

Joe Rice · Apr 21, 2020

Just wanted to follow up here. I used the ATI Essentials product for about 18 months but recently I've stopped. Results in my tank were fine but over the course of using a jug of the alkalinity solution, I found I would have to slowly increase the dosing every 3 or 4 days to maintain a constant alk reading. As the jug got close to empty I would be dosing 3x the amount I was dosing at the start. For the record, I was using very tall, skinny dosing jugs and diluting the solutions with an equal part of RO/DI water so I don't know what part that may have played. Also had a similar but less dramatic effect with the Ca component.