Acropower dosing help

aaron186 · Dec 17, 2023

I could use help figuring out how to best use acropower. I have an almost 1 year old SPS tank.

My tank is 100 gal total and my Alk is 8-8.2, nitrates 2-3 and phos 0.08 and has been pretty stable. I have a spare dosing head and I’m forgetful about dosing so prefer to automate. The directions equate to min of 20mL week or max of 20mL per day. I saw on here that Julian Sprung advised against small daily doses. Does this mean I should go to the max dose? My nutrients are low so tank can probably handle it. But dosing the max goes against what I usually do. Any advice on how to dose this?

am3gross · Dec 17, 2023

I just started dosing myself. Within the last 2-3 weeks. I had a bout with low nutrients and it caused some burnt tips.

I hooked mine up to the dos, when the return pumps goes off at 1800 for there dinner is when I dose the tank with the acropower. I dose 40 mls nightly, at the same time. I also adjusted the return pumps to stay off longer so that the Acropower can stay in the display longer.

You can tell when you dose for sure, the corals react to it. Polyps out and just looking super happy. If you start to see Cyano then I would cut back the usage, otherwise let the corals tell you and go slow with it.

aaron186 · Dec 18, 2023

I decided on dosing 10mL nightly at midnight. The recommended dosing for my tank is 25 mL weekly or 25mL daily. I think this is splitting the difference. Does this seem reasonable?

am3gross · Dec 18, 2023

aaron186 said:
I decided on dosing 10mL nightly at midnight. The recommended dosing for my tank is 25 mL weekly or 25mL daily. I think this is splitting the difference. Does this seem reasonable?

I think the smaller dose is the right thing to do so you can see how your tank does with it.

As far as doing it at midnight I am not sure. I like doing mine when the pumps are off, during the day so I can see how the corals react. After my dos goes off you can see the instant polyp's out on most of the SPS. Additionally, by me dosing on 40 ML's with the pump off I am basically only feeding it to the display, which is 375 gallons. then it will get watered down when the pumps come back on and goes thru the rest of the system. My total system is about 700 gallons and I dont want to dose extra ML's if I dont have to.