Dosing - which brand do you prefer?

[TastyScrants]

Hello!

Im currently using RedSea products. I dose their individual calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium reagents manually. I don’t use their trace elements, yet.

I’m thinking of changing to an alternative product that contains trace elements in the primary dosing reagents. I’m mainly using RedSea reagents as I’m using their coral pro salt. I do feel that the accelerated growth parameters are too high after spending some time looking through your tank diaries, but I’ve stuck with it.

What do you recommend?
What do you prefer?
I think I’d go with powdered products and make up my own reagents to cut costs

I don’t have a doser yet but I am going to buy one for myself as a Christmas present. So I need to decide on a set of reagents as this will help me decide how many heads I’ll need on the doser.

Thanks!

 

[chema]

Hello!

Im currently using RedSea products. I dose their individual calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium reagents manually. I don’t use their trace elements, yet.

I’m thinking of changing to an alternative product that contains trace elements in the primary dosing reagents. I’m mainly using RedSea reagents as I’m using their coral pro salt. I do feel that the accelerated growth parameters are too high after spending some time looking through your tank diaries, but I’ve stuck with it.

What do you recommend?
What do you prefer?
I think I’d go with powdered products and make up my own reagents to cut costs

I don’t have a doser yet but I am going to buy one for myself as a Christmas present. So I need to decide on a set of reagents as this will help me decide how many heads I’ll need on the doser.

Thanks!

If you are not afraid of chemistry, buy the chemicals and prepare your own solutions. You'll be 100% sure about what you are adding to the tank and save a lot of money.

 

[DeniableArc]

Hello!

Im currently using RedSea products. I dose their individual calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium reagents manually. I don’t use their trace elements, yet.

I’m thinking of changing to an alternative product that contains trace elements in the primary dosing reagents. I’m mainly using RedSea reagents as I’m using their coral pro salt. I do feel that the accelerated growth parameters are too high after spending some time looking through your tank diaries, but I’ve stuck with it.

What do you recommend?
What do you prefer?
I think I’d go with powdered products and make up my own reagents to cut costs

I don’t have a doser yet but I am going to buy one for myself as a Christmas present. So I need to decide on a set of reagents as this will help me decide how many heads I’ll need on the doser.

Thanks!

Hi, I have been using aqua forest component 1+2+3+ for a year it covers all the major and trace elements and keeps my tank very stable.

 

[Gtinnel]

I just use Randy's diy 2 part with calcium chloride and sodium carbonate (baked baking soda). It's incredibly cheap and works well but it doesn't include any trace elements. Up until recently I was just doing an AWC that seemed to replace trace elements, but within the last few weeks I've started dosing Tropic Marin A and K elements. I'm not sure that I see any improvements from dosing the trace elements honestly, but I'm going to keep doing it for another month or so and then send off an icp test.

 

[dk2nt9]

For Ca, Mg, Alk it shouldn't matter, ESV, Seachem or any other brand works. Larger tanks can use kalkwasser with some precautions. If bulk chemicals are available in your country, even better.

With trace elements there are two main directions:

1. Either rely on more water changes for replenishing them without testing,
2. Or test for what you have to add, to know if it has to be added or no, and not overdosing.

In my low tech tanks, I ended with more water changes, less risk and expenses.

 

[TastyScrants]

Thanks all for your replies. I already do 10% weekly water changes so I haven’t bothered dosing or testing for trace elements yet. Once my coral pro bucket is empty I’ll switch over to blue bucket.

I was just interested to hear if one method was better than another, but I guess not by the time I hook up a doser. I think I’m going to stick with dosing calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium as 3 separate reagents but look in to making reagents my own from bulk materials.

 

[Snuggs]

ESV. BEST FOR ME

 

[bpbonds]

I use All For Reef I buy the Powder and mix it with RO, so far its been a great product easy to use Corals seem to be happy..

 

[JNalley]

Thanks all for your replies. I already do 10% weekly water changes so I haven’t bothered dosing or testing for trace elements yet. Once my coral pro bucket is empty I’ll switch over to blue bucket.

I was just interested to hear if one method was better than another, but I guess not by the time I hook up a doser. I think I’m going to stick with dosing calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium as 3 separate reagents but look in to making reagents my own from bulk materials.

Reagents are what's used in your test kit to create a chemical reaction that tells you how much of what element/compound is in the water. Calcium and Magnesium are elements, and Alkalinity is a measure of the water's ability to neutralize acids but is commonly lumped into the "elements" category or just a dosing liquid; sometimes it is also called a buffer. Trace Elements are just that, elements found in trace amounts in the water. If you're needing to replenish Calcium and Magnesium (meaning that your water changes are not enough for this), that generally means it's time to start dosing trace elements as well as they get taken up at similar rates to those two. Personally, I dose the entire Red Sea line of products, the Foundations, and the Reef Colors Supplements, plus AB+ and NOPOX (as necessary). But I would not recommend this without investing in the test kits so you can avoid accidental overdose.

 

[Gtinnel]

But I would not recommend this without investing in the test kits so you can avoid accidental overdose.

I've always wondered for people who dose trace elements in 2 or 4 different solutions (I'm now in that group) how helpful is buying the test kits that test for 1 of the many elements in a specific bottle? I assume, and I could be completely wrong, that not everything in the tank uses those elements up at the same ratio as they are dosed at. So you may know that your not overdosing one specific element but how do you know your not overdosing another that there isn't a home test for?
My intentions are to dose at a decreased rate than recommended and then send off an ICP test after a few months of doing it. On another thread Randy had told me that if you are dosing at a level less than recommended by the manufacturer you're unlikely to dose too much of any element, so that's what gave me the confidence to blindly dose for a few months before testing.

 

[JNalley]

I've always wondered for people who dose trace elements in 2 or 4 different solutions (I'm now in that group) how helpful is buying the test kits that test for 1 of the many elements in a specific bottle? I assume, and I could be completely wrong, that not everything in the tank uses those elements up at the same ratio as they are dosed at. So you may know that your not overdosing one specific element but how do you know your not overdosing another that there isn't a home test for?
My intentions are to dose at a decreased rate than recommended and then send off an ICP test after a few months of doing it. On another thread Randy had told me that if you are dosing at a level less than recommended by the manufacturer you're unlikely to dose too much of any element, so that's what gave me the confidence to blindly dose for a few months before testing.

Yeah, if no testing kits exist (as is the case for things like boron, beryllium, etc) then an ICP test is really the only way to go to know for sure, and I'd likely perform one every 6 months, if not quarterly just to be on the safe side. However, if you take Red Sea's Iron+ supplement as a, for instance, it contains copper, something harmful to inverts. I read a blog post by ICP-Analysis about Iron deficiency in their corals recently, they dosed, Iron test read 0, dosed again, 0 again, so they kept dosing larger amounts until the iron level reached 0.15. Their analysis, along with the help of red sea, was that the corals were iron deficient and took it all up until they reached a saturation point. Now, since it also contains copper, which we know to be harmful to inverts, certainly ICP was testing for this as well, and they essentially had to overdose the Iron to get it to read on the test, my conclusion was that the amounts of those extra trace elements are so low that they're unlikely to ever become harmful as long as it's dosed as prescribed, and you do ICP testing every so often to verify the things you cannot test for. If you see dangerous, or approaching dangerous, levels of copper, stop dosing the iron until it gets taken up.

 

[Dolphins18]

ESV. BEST FOR ME

+1 ESV. Stuff has been the gold standard for ages.

 

[Gtinnel]

Yeah, if no testing kits exist (as is the case for things like boron, beryllium, etc) then an ICP test is really the only way to go to know for sure, and I'd likely perform one every 6 months, if not quarterly just to be on the safe side. However, if you take Red Sea's Iron+ supplement as a, for instance, it contains copper, something harmful to inverts. I read a blog post by ICP-Analysis about Iron deficiency in their corals recently, they dosed, Iron test read 0, dosed again, 0 again, so they kept dosing larger amounts until the iron level reached 0.15. Their analysis, along with the help of red sea, was that the corals were iron deficient and took it all up until they reached a saturation point. Now, since it also contains copper, which we know to be harmful to inverts, certainly ICP was testing for this as well, and they essentially had to overdose the Iron to get it to read on the test, my conclusion was that the amounts of those extra trace elements are so low that they're unlikely to ever become harmful as long as it's dosed as prescribed, and you do ICP testing every so often to verify the things you cannot test for. If you see dangerous, or approaching dangerous, levels of copper, stop dosing the iron until it gets taken up.

So please correct me if I'm wrong, in your opinion it's just a matter of testing what you can from home and hoping the others stay within an acceptable range? Then verifying periodically with ICP testing.
The Red Sea trace colors additives contain 31 total elements. It just seems silly to me that we test a couple of them with home test kits, that likely aren't accurate enough anyway, to tell if we are over dosing all of them. I agree ICP tests are the way to go but I think I'm going to ignore the home testing part....hopefully I don't find out I'm completely wrong and regret that decision.

 

[JNalley]

So please correct me if I'm wrong, in your opinion it's just a matter of testing what you can from home and hoping the others stay within an acceptable range? Then verifying periodically with ICP testing.
The Red Sea trace colors additives contain 31 total elements. It just seems silly to me that we test a couple of them with home test kits, that likely aren't accurate enough anyway, to tell if we are over dosing all of them. I agree ICP tests are the way to go but I think I'm going to ignore the home testing part....hopefully I don't find out I'm completely wrong and regret that decision.

yeah, that's how I'm approaching it... test the Iron, Potassium, and Iodine, keep them within spec via dosing, and test every 3-6 months with ICP to confirm (obviously still keep an eye on corals and inverts for adverse effects between ICP tests)

 

[Gtinnel]

yeah, that's how I'm approaching it... test the Iron, Potassium, and Iodine, keep them within spec via dosing, and test every 3-6 months with ICP to confirm (obviously still keep an eye on corals and inverts for adverse effects between ICP tests)

I suppose without spending a fortune on constant ICP testing that is about all that can be done. My hopes is that if I am getting near overdosing a specific element I will notice a change in the tank before it becomes too much of a problem. I may have a change of heart and buy those test kits as well, I've been on the fence about them for a while now.

 

[JNalley]

I suppose without spending a fortune on constant ICP testing that is about all that can be done. My hopes is that if I am getting near overdosing a specific element I will notice a change in the tank before it becomes too much of a problem. I may have a change of heart and buy those test kits as well, I've been on the fence about them for a while now.

wanna go halfsies on a mass spectrometer? lol

 

[Gtinnel]

wanna go halfsies on a mass spectrometer? lol

Would this work like a custody arrangement where you get it one week and then I get it the next. We would have to alternate on holidays.

 

[JNalley]

Would this work like a custody arrangement where you get it one week and then I get it the next. We would have to alternate on holidays.

I'm sure it's too much to ship back and forth or drive for that matter, so I'd say one of us keeps it, and whoever keeps it pays/reimburses the shipping of the sample to them, results can be given digitally.

 

[SPR1968]

Hello!

Im currently using RedSea products. I dose their individual calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium reagents manually. I don’t use their trace elements, yet.

I’m thinking of changing to an alternative product that contains trace elements in the primary dosing reagents. I’m mainly using RedSea reagents as I’m using their coral pro salt. I do feel that the accelerated growth parameters are too high after spending some time looking through your tank diaries, but I’ve stuck with it.

What do you recommend?
What do you prefer?
I think I’d go with powdered products and make up my own reagents to cut costs

I don’t have a doser yet but I am going to buy one for myself as a Christmas present. So I need to decide on a set of reagents as this will help me decide how many heads I’ll need on the doser.

Thanks!

If you look at this post hopefully it will help you out and I’m also based in Nottinghamshire so you can get them all.

Monster Build - Shaun's 2000 Litre (530 USG) Living Reef & Red Sea Max S 650 LED Design & Build

oops me

www.reef2reef.com

You will save so much money you’ll be asking for my address to send me a present!

Infact I’ve been meaning to come and look at that pile of rocks near we’re you live for decade’s, so you can now buy me a beer! Lol