Dosing Questions

[JAWSIII]

Hi all, It has been a long while since I posted. Hurricane IDA kinda changed up my routine ( to say the least). I will spare you the details, the short version is I used to have a 65 with a sump and I managed to save some macroalgae and a little rock and set up a 10 gallon AIO. The 10 gallon is doing very well, I currently have 2 clowns, 1 tailspot blenny and clown goby as far as fish. a couple snails and a few hermits. As far as corals I have a 4 head hammer, 3 head duncan, a cristata torch and a red digi and some GSP on back wall.

The tank parameters have stayed fairly stable even with my hand dosing for the last several months. My params have been:

SG 1.025
Cal 430
ALK 9.0
Mag 1350
PH 7.9-8.2 depending on what time of day I test
Temp 78
Phos .03
Nitrate 5-10 ppm avg
Nitrite undetectable
Ammonia undetectable

Over the last few months, I have tested Cal, Alk, and Mag at different time frames and consistently to determine the usage of the tank for each. My conclusion came to my needing to add 0.6 ml of alk and 0.3 ml of Cal per day to keep up with demand. Mag stays more stable and I have been needing to add mag every 2 weeks or so at 6-8 mls. As I stated before I have been hand dosing the Cal and Alk every day. I very recently received 2 kamoer x1 pumps and set them up to dose the above Cal and Alk auto at different times of the day.

Now to my real question... Is it better to set the dosing times during the "day" when lights are up or "Night"?

I am using Seachems Reef Fusion 2 part as the dosing solutions for Cal and ALk, and AquaVitro Ions for Mag.

 

[blaxsun]

I dose throughout the day myself, but with such small amounts you'd probably be fine just dosing in the evening, etc.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If the system volume is 10 gallons and you add 0.6 mL of Seachem reef fusion alk part, that is only 0.2 dKH and since it is so low, it won't matter what time of day you add it. In general, alk is deplete more during the day, so dosing them may be "best" for alk stability, while pH is lowest at night so dosing alk then can keep the pH minimum up. In your cause, both effects are small.