Dosing Question

[dolpator]

All my knowledgeable reefers,

Now that I have a substantial amount of corals in my mixed reef tank (soft, LPS, and SPS), I have a dosing issue. I am 2 part dosing now manually, until I can afford to get dosing pumps, charted all my dosing for 2weeks and found that in order to keep my tank at 9KH and 420 calcium I am dosing 50 ML of each. So my question is since I am doing this, my tank doesn't look as healthy as it did when wasn't strictly dosing. Is this just because the corals are acclimating to the new dosing regiment? I am seeing great growth on my SPS but my zoas, acans, and duncans seem to be suffering a little and just a little worried. I slowly brought everything up so I am hoping that this is just an effect of the dosing routine. I also was dosing both at the same time (sort of, calcium in the tank and alk in the sump) but changed over to alk in the morning and calcium at night just from things I have read in forums. Thank you uncle Buddy for the O2 line from the skimmer to help stabilize my PH. It is now hovering around 8.2 All other parameters are in check. Had water tested against my numbers from the local reef shop. Any input on this would be greatly appreciated.

90 gallon mixed reef
30 gallon sump

Salinity 1.025
PH 8.2
Temp 78.2
Phosphate 0.0 ppm
Nitrates 5-10ppm
magnesium - 1375
alkalinity - 9
calcium -420

 

[mike007]

Actually you want to dose your alkalinity after lights are out to prevent ph spikes. You dose your calcium in the day. You never want to dose both at the same time. When you dose you need to spread out the dosages in small amounts. That's where a dosing pump comes into play. They will dose small amounts throughout the day to keep your parameters stable .Corals do not respond to swings. Hope this helps.

 

[Budman's Corals]

Actually you want to dose your alkalinity after lights are out to prevent ph spikes. You dose your calcium in the day. You never want to dose both at the same time. When you dose you need to spread out the dosages in small amounts. That's where a dosing pump comes into play. They will dose small amounts throughout the day to keep your parameters stable .Corals do not respond to swings. Hope this helps.

+1 mike007

Pumps will become your best friend. It makes life so much easier when you let them do the work, anything to make this hobby less then a chore is better.
I spread out the alk for 9 hours@ night and about 10 minutes every hour. Calcium dose 10 hours during the day. heres a good article i saw
Aquarium Dosing: You have options - REEFEDITION