Beginning 2 part dosing, need help.

JCSReefing · Sep 9, 2016

This weekend I want to. I next my 2 part doser and magnesium. I will be dosing calcium,alk, and magnesium. I have a 65g reef tank with mostly soft corals and an acropora, montipora, and goniapora. I am using reef crystals as salt with 10g water changes weekly. I am needing help on what would be a good starting dose to set up on my doser? As in a good starting point for how many MIlileters of each dosing for calcium,alk,and magnesium?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

DracoKat · Sep 9, 2016

following as I wil be doing the same

nemo1017 · Sep 9, 2016

What 2 part are you using? I use BRS. I dose through a jebao dp2. Mostly lps at the moment but am slowly amassing an sps collection. 50 gallon tank. I am dosing 20 ml of cal and 20 ml of alk daily. Mag I am going to wait to dose until I run out of the mixed jugs of cal and alk. ( as per instructions on brs). I also use reef crystals. I do weekly 5 gallon water changes. I'm trying to target the parameters listed on Brs. My cal runs Around 420 and alk runs from 9-10. I just added some sps frags so I'm chasing the numbers a little bit again, but at the moment about 9.5 is my alk. I would go to the BRS website and type in the numbers you want and it'll tell you how much to dose. Divide the number by 5, and it'll give you how much to dose over 5 days to get to the numbers you want. Then once you have that. I believe the starting dose is .1 ml per gallon of tank water. It's super easy to get dialed in. Just takes a little bit of practice; And as always dose slow. Dose the cal in the morning over a few hours. Then dose the alk at night over a few hours. Alk is usually done at night to prevent ph swings; as ph will drop at night anyways. You'll know if you're dosing too fast or too much if you see white clumpy material. That is precipitation.

ngvu1 · Sep 9, 2016

You should measure to see how the parameters drop before jumping in to dose like fragaholic :-); From what you describe "mostly soft corals and an acropora, montipora, and goniapora" you might not need to dose with 10 gallon water change weekly. The acropora, montipora are the only two I think can screw up the alkalinity if you have the fast growing type, but with 10 gallon water change weekly, I doubt if dosing is needed. Of course if these 2 are not huge, giant....! measure first :-)

reeferfoxx · Sep 9, 2016

You cannot base your dosing regimen on tank size and what others are doing. You will need to measure on a daily basis exactly what you are losing. Followed by using a dosing calculator to calculate the amount needed. You may have to dose twice a day or just twice a week. All depends on what your corals are up taking. Dosing calculators will also tell you what is too much, as too much dosing can cause major parameter swings. Parameter swings are what we are trying to avoid here.

JCSReefing · Sep 12, 2016

Ok so I should test me calcium and alk everyday for say 5-7 days and see what it starts at and ends at and find what I lose (if any) and then figure that into the calculator to show how much to dose of each to maintain the wanted ppm of calcium and alk throughout correct?

reeferfoxx · Sep 12, 2016

First and fore most, yes. Find out what you are losing. If you are losing alk or calcium then...
Just need to figure out the target alkalinity and calcium that you want. Then test to see where you are. If you are low, then use the calculator. It will tell you how much is needed for the target amount. Dose accordingly to the calculator. Wait an hour and test again. You should maintain your target everyday. Just in case, test in the morning again to see if you lost the same amount. Do this every day for a week. Then after that should be smooth sailing unless you see a lot of growth and/or add more coral.