Dosing pump schedule / times per day?

[Brew12]

How does dosing that often affect your dosing pump longevity?

I burned out my first dosing head in under a month but that was dosing 5 times a day at high speed, 200mL at a time. GHL gave me a warranty replacement and recommend the much slower dosing rate and much more frequently. My understanding is that at the 2 slowest speeds the pump wear will be minimal. With the new head, slower rate, and increased number of smaller doses I have been running another month with no signs of an issue.

But, at $7 per replacement head, it won't bother me to replace it once every month or two. They seem to think I should get 4 to 6 months out of each head.

 

[reefwiser]

I have been dosing 5 times a day with my GHL dosers for 6 years. Never touched them.

 

[madweazl]

Every 90 minutes (16x daily); scheduled five minutes apart.

 

[Peanut]

I agree. If you use a dosing pump, I don't see a reason to not spread it our over as many times during the light cycle and perhaps some at night, as your timer and dosing volume will permit.

I really never thought about it in terms of the light cycle but I guess that does make sense. My problem is that I use a bubble magnus to dose and it only asks "how many times a day" and not the specific time. I assume this is typical of most dosing pumps.

Is the dosing at "night" really a waste, or will there be a build up over night that's ready to be used when lights come on?

 

[themcnertney]

Can you edit the vote for a "I don't dose" category?

 

[jsker]

8 time daily, I agree the more I dose the steadier my parameter are.

 

[Kayvon]

Good to know @Brew12. It's also helpful to know that you're using the same pump as me

 

[laverda]

In the past I have dosed kalk or alk at night hourly to help eliminate some of the PH swing. My current Seaside dosing pump only alows me to set how much and how many times a day to dose. I find it annoying to change the programing and one head has failed. I plan on replacing it entirely. I just picked up some different dosers so I could have more control and dose alk at night. My ALK has been dropping recently due to increasing demand. So last night I set up one of the new dosers to test and suplement my Alk dose every half hour during lights out. This thread has me rethinking that.

 

[Yati]

ZERO! Calcium Reactor baby!

!

 

[reefwiser]

My problem is that I use a bubble magnus to dose and it only asks "how many times a day" and not the specific time. I assume this is typical of most dosing pumps.

No the GHL dosers let you dose at any times that you want for each head.

 

[saltyhog]

Alk every hour on the hour, Ca at the bottom of every hour via Apex.

 

[Brew12]

No the GHL dosers let you dose at any times that you want for each head.

To expound on this, it really goes one step further. You can not only set an exact time for each dose but you can set a different amount to dose for each time it runs.

The only thing you can't set custom is the speed. You have to set the speed and calibrate it up front.

 

[reefwiser]

Right one can only dose one speed on a pump. The speed is chosen by what one doses. So that if you need to be exact one would set the speed to slow to make sure of the dose amount.

 

[ReefManKen]

I’m on the fence all together about dosing pumps and stability. For my own personal choice I test and dose as needed. There is never a constant and the elements in the sea are constantly changing as well. Nutrients increase and decrease in natural seawater and like all living things I’ve found that coral and such usually have fast onset of problems because they aren’t conditioned for the tough times.

Hence building a tolerance in my livestock to weather the times when things get tough makes them get stronger and handle any major changes that may occur and less chance of a crash. Being vigilant with your tank seems to be a better tool than a babysitter always feeding even when it isn’t needed. My system has been growing over 1.5 years and stable I’ve only lost one Naso Tang and 2 heads of my oldest torch and that was because it fell over and I didn’t realize it. Beyond that I test and dose and my harcorals are all expanding and growing over the live rock and are now permanently attached my overflow is covered with star polyps nearly 100% bottom to top. So again I’m on the fence with dosing pumps as it seems to just be a tool to not have to keep an eye on your reef as much and in my opinion. But to each their own great topic!

 

[rkpetersen]

Alkalinity and calcium, spaced 5 minutes apart, each dispensed every 13 minutes.

Trace elements and amino acids, each dispensed every 102 minutes.

Magnesium, iron, and iodine, hand-dosed into the overflow 2x/week.

Strontium hand-dosed into the overflow once per week.

Carbon hand-dosed into the overflow daily, only as needed for nitrate > 3.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
I apologise before hand, I have very little knowledge when it comes to chemistry. What type of surfaces could this precipitation bind to?

I have very little in the way of rocks and I run a bare bottomed tank. I like the look of a tank with only a few very large corals....eventually.

Please could you tell me what sort of signs I should look for? There is no point wasting dosing chemicals if it is only going to precipitate out.

Precipitation of calcium carbonate doesn’t need a surface, and analysis of skimmer output shows a lot of calcium carbonate, nearly as much mass as organic matter.

But existing calcium carbonate surfaces can act as seed crystals for more precipitation, as do warm surfaces like heaters and pump impellers.

That said, to the extent it happens, it may largely be a fact of life in a reef tank. [emoji3]

 

[Peanut]

@Randy Holmes-Farley if I am currently dosing 1 ml hourly over 24 hours, 24ml a day, would I be better off dosing the 24ml over a 12 hour period mostly during daylight?

 

[ZaneTer]

Precipitation of calcium carbonate doesn’t need a surface, and analysis of skimmer output shows a lot of calcium carbonate, nearly as much mass as organic matter.

But existing calcium carbonate surfaces can act as seed crystals for more precipitation, as do warm surfaces like heaters and pump impellers.

That said, to the extent it happens, it may largely be a fact of life in a reef tank. [emoji3]

Thank you very much. Do you know of any means by which I could measure the precipitation occurring in my tank? If possible I would like to calculate an efficiency factor.

 

[srad750c]

Hi everyone!

How many times per day do you run your dosing pump for your Ca, Alk, Mag, etc? Only once per day? Twice a day? 4 times, 6 times, 12 times?

What do you think is the most stable for you parameters, and also the best for dosing accuracy. I was dosing 12 times per day, but because I have a pretty low Ca, Alk, and Mag need currently, I am thinking of bumping it down to 4 or 6 times per day so when my dosing unit kicks on its pumping out more than 1-3 ml per time. What do you all do?

Thanks!


- David

6 times, 00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, 20:00, 5ml @00:00, 3 ml @04:00 alternating. I dose 2 part calcium/alkalinity. I dose everything else manually.

 

[Vincent100]

Every hour