Dosing

[BiilB]

I have the red sea 4 part system how many days a week should I dose? Big piece of monti some 3 acro and lots of softies

 

[mcarroll]

Obviously the dosing is only for the hard coral, not the soft coral. If that's all the coral you have and your tank is new to coral, you may not have to dose at all for a little while while they grow in – as long as you're doing regular water changes.

Once they're growing fast enough that you can notice your alkalinity dropping in regular testing, then you're into it for real. More water changes, or higher grade salt (eg Reef Crystals vs Instant Ocean) might still cover their needs for a while longer. Where you decide to make the cut at not doing more/bigger/better water changes and to begin dosing is fairly personal.

If you aren't doing water changes, then you start dosing when you see alk dropping, and ideally you dose every day or as-needed. Once demand is consistent, weekly is sort of a minimum, but lots of corals won't tolerate the alk swings that will allow. (More or less all "easy" corals will tolerate it fine tho.)

 

[BiilB]

Thank you

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Testing the water will determine how often you need to dose or if you even need to dose, we can't advise on that as every tank is different. Test the water daily for a week without dosing, this exercise will tell you exactly how much your tank consumes on weekly basis, then you know if you need to dose or not, and how much to dose.

 

[ColorMeGone]

I check salinity everyday and I check my water pars on Saturday's and have a 4 head doser using 3 heads. One for N03, one for P04, and one for KH. I adjust them as needed. Last week my P04 was a bit high so I adjusted that head to dose twice last week instead of everyday. After breakfast this morning I will test my water and adjust accordingly.