Do I need to start dosing anything?

[Zerobytes]

I have 40g or so volume. Currently have 2 clowns, one Blenny, probably 15 snails, and 1 cleaner shrimp.

Corals... I’m just getting started, so have 3 so far. I’m planning to add 4-6 per month.

My readings are pretty consistent:

Ca - 425 - 450
Mag - 1450- 1470
Alk - keep about 8.5 (dose a little Red Sea every couple days)
PO4 always reads 0 on my Hanna but sure there must be some. I’m going to get another test (Red Sea) to compare.

10.% water changes weekly.
NoPox - 2ml / day

I’m very new and trying to learn but wondering if I need to start dosing anything now for the corals, or stay the course?

 

[cracker]

Sounds ok Zero, Any issues? Any algae or such? Other than not knowing how old the tank is,I see no reason why not to add a coral or two . Then you "|may " have to add something. Your gotta wait & see. Good luck !

 

[Zerobytes]

Sounds ok Zero, Any issues? Any algae or such? Other than not knowing how old the tank is,I see no reason why not to add a coral or two . Then you "|may " have to add something gotta wait & see. Good luck !

Hi. Tank is 3 months old. No issues, algae, etc. I try to export as much of the food as possible by blowing and stirring up the sand weekly and I run my skimmer pretty wet.

 

[Hemmdog]

Hi. Tank is 3 months old. No issues, algae, etc. I try to export as much of the food as possible by blowing and stirring up the sand weekly and I run my skimmer pretty wet.

Be careful with wet skimming and stirring your sand and all that. There is such a thing as to clean. Corals don’t like it super super clean in most cases. Especially beginner/moderate difficulty corals. I try to aim to dump my skimmer cup once a week. When I do it is straight black horrible grossness. This is what you want. Do you know what your nitrates are? I don’t see a need to be dosing Nopox this early on. I dose it but that’s because I have a trigger who eats 5 cubes of mysis a day to the dome.
What is your lighting and flow ?

 

[Zerobytes]

Lighting is a hydra pro 26. Came packaged with my reefer 170. I run that saxby schedule but I do have a filter on the light that tunes it down a bit.

I have a Nero 5 pump that usually runs at 5-7 pct - 1000-1200 gph. On the skimmer I have made progress lately with less wet and more stink. I haven’t mastered the fine tuning but getting better.

 

[Zerobytes]

Dupe

 

[Hemmdog]

Lighting is a hydra pro 26. Came packaged with my reefer 170. I run that saxby schedule but I do have a filter on the light that tunes it down a bit.

I have a Nero 5 pump that usually runs at 5-7 pct - 1000-1200 gph. On the skimmer I have made progress lately with less wet and more stink. I haven’t mastered the fine tuning but getting better.

Awesome, sounds like your on the right track! I wouldn’t dose until you have noticeable daily consumption. You will have to test daily for a bit to figure that out. Make a build thread! I wanna see these corals!

 

[Zerobytes]

Haha. They are there and with a lot of glue on them! Haven’t quite figured that part out either.

 

[Hemmdog]

Haha. They are there and with a lot of glue on them! Haven’t quite figured that part out either.

You’ll get the hang of it, lol. I recommend Surgical grade stainless steel long tongs. LFS sell them. A little pricy but man I use those things for a lot of stuff in my tank.

 

[Zerobytes]

You’ll get the hang of it, lol. I recommend Surgical grade stainless steel long tongs. LFS sell them. A little pricy but man I use those things for a lot of stuff in my tank.

I was just looking for those last week as trying to keep my hands out of the water. But the tank is pretty deep and was looking for some kick butt 30in ones.

 

[cracker]

All sounds good Man ! First corals? This is a fun time !

 

[Hemmdog]

I was just looking for those last week as trying to keep my hands out of the water. But the tank is pretty deep and was looking for some kick *** 30in ones.

Nice!! Haha. I think mine are about 14 inches. 30 inches would be a game changer! I still can’t reach the sand in the back of my bigger tank lol.

 

[Orm Embar]

If your calcium, magnesium, and alkalinity are stable just with water changes using a good salt (with trace elements), then you don't need to dose as your water changes are handling your tank's current consumption needs. Once your Ca/alk start to gradually drift down (when you get more corals), you will probably need to dose calcium/alkalinity (and maybe mag if water changes don't handle that as well). Dosing Ca/alk can be done in a variety of ways.

Good luck!

 

[MrObscura]

Dose when your testing tells you it's time to start. As long as water changes can keep you within 1 dkh during the week don't worry about it.

Id also caution dosing nopox, especially in a young tank. You run the risk of driving nutrients too low and that brings problems much worse than having slightly high nutrients. Though with a skimmer, and weekly waterchanges nutrients should be an issue.

 

[Zerobytes]

Dose when your testing tells you it's time to start. As long as water changes can keep you within 1 dkh during the week don't worry about it.

Id also caution dosing nopox, especially in a young tank. You run the risk of driving nutrients too low and that brings problems much worse than having slightly high nutrients. Though with a skimmer, and weekly waterchanges nutrients should be an issue.

Yea, I was trying to get and keep nitrates down. They are much lower now so was planning to cut back to 1ml / day, just because I guess. I’m really good about the water changes and it’s pretty easy with a small tank. So hopefully that replenishes stuff.

 

[dwest]

Everything sounds good except I would not dose nopox at all. With no phosphates and dosing nopox in a new tank you are setting yourself up for dinos. You don’t want to go there. Sounds like you are doing a great job.

 

[Zerobytes]

Everything sounds good except I would not dose nopox at all. With no phosphates and dosing nopox in a new tank you are setting yourself up for dinos. You don’t want to go there. Sounds like you are doing a great job.

Ths sounds good. Thank you.

 

[Zerobytes]

@dwest So Phophates were 0 as well with RS with multiple samples. Odd. I started dosing PO4 today and got it up to .02 (something registered finally). I'll monitor and dose as needed to keep something steady. I'm not sure how it got to zero. From everything I've read NoPox wouldn't do that, but that is a variable for sure. I started feeding more as well but I don't want Nitrates to go back up to 50/60 either.