Can I dose aminos with a pump. Can I use an auto feeder for Reef Chili?

[kinetic]

My tank has no NO3, and pretty low PO4. I can't get any chaeto to grow, and my tank has a very mild case of (maybe) dinos (waiting to get a microscope to know for sure).

I ordered some DinoX, Reef Chili, and PolyLab Polyp-Booster. I'm going to try hand dosing the chili to increase food in my tank without feeding my fish even more (they are way too fat), and also trying to use polyp-booster for more aminos. I'm hoping these things will increase at least NO3.

DinoX will be used to then kill of dinos.

If this all works, I'll probably need to continue dosing aminos and coral foods. My tank is really low maintenance now, and I'm hoping to keep it that way without getting too fancy.

I have an automatic feeder (Neptune AFS) and can probably get a BRS dosing pump on a timer. Is it OK to put the coral foods in my auto feeder with the fish food? And will I be able to dose amino acids with a pump without stirring constantly?

 

[Seth Francis]

How are you trying to grow the chaeto?

 

[kinetic]

How are you trying to grow the chaeto?

Chaeto reactor. Here's my exact setup:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/kinetic-rsr-170.323097/page-3#post-4082098

 

[Seth Francis]

Okay, neat way to do that!
What’s your light schedule? Stocking in the tank, size, time line on the cycling? Any picks?

 

[kinetic]

Sure, check out my build thread. Link is in my sig.

But still looking for some help on whether I can dose aminos using a pump or if I need to always shake a bottle and hand dose. Same with reef chili in the auto feeder.

 

[Seth Francis]

I made a DIY scrubber and chaeto mini sump that has been working really well! This was at the very beginning of my Nano, haha it’s funny looking at this pic now.

 

[Seth Francis]

Sure, check out my build thread. Link is in my sig.

But still looking for some help on whether I can dose aminos using a pump or if I need to always shake a bottle and hand dose. Same with reef chili in the auto feeder.

I honestly never thought to do either, I do target feeding with my chili’s and I don’t dose aminos often enough to automate it. My gut feeling is that the reef chili in the auto feeder may not be a great idea. I imagine the auto feed would have a difficult time consistently processing that fine of a media.

 

[xiaoxiy]

Hey Kinetic, I use my dosing pump for AcroPower. I'm dosing it at a dosage of 0.08ml/gallon/day. For my tank, it comes out to about 4ml, and the doser dispenses it 1ml intervals, at 7am (start of my photoperiod), 10AM, 12PM and 2PM.

I'm using AcroPower simply because it doesn't need to be shaken and refridgerated.

 

[kinetic]

Hey Kinetic, I use my dosing pump for AcroPower. I'm dosing it at a dosage of 0.08ml/gallon/day. For my tank, it comes out to about 4ml, and the doser dispenses it 1ml intervals, at 7am (start of my photoperiod), 10AM, 12PM and 2PM.

I'm using AcroPower simply because it doesn't need to be shaken and refridgerated.

Any reason you're dosing during the time your lights are on? I was thinking it might be more beneficial when the lights are off since that's when most of the non-photosynthetic "eating" occurs with corals?

 

[xiaoxiy]

Any reason you're dosing during the time your lights are on? I was thinking it might be more beneficial when the lights are off since that's when most of the non-photosynthetic "eating" occurs with corals?

Based off of this paper on Stylophoras. Free Amino Acid uptake was correlated with increasing light intensity.

 

[kinetic]

Based off of this paper on Stylophoras. Free Amino Acid uptake was correlated with increasing light intensity.

Very cool! Thank you for that link!

 

[kinetic]

Update: dinos destroyed the tank. Fought it off and finally outcompeting it with a steady dose of daily NoPox now.

My tank is pretty low in nutrients now, almost never can detect NO3/PO4. My SPS are doing fine, and are coloring up. I've been dosing AcroPower with a dosing pump at 2ml a day, and I spot feed reef chili to the few sps sticks I have on the rockwork. My light is the Hydra 52 HD, with huge peaks throughout the day (mimicing the radion sps+ program, but with saxby peaks).

Hand feeding reef chili is fine, but I was thinking of making this more automated. Any thoughts on how I could continuously dose food for the acros throughout the day?