EI dosing works great for Plant tank... why not for Reef tank ??

[BMXfetish]

I kept a high light/CO2 fresh water plant tank for a few years. One of the more popular ways of adding fertilizers is the EI dosing method. Basically it's where you dose your ferts all week long, then on "Sunday" you do a minimum 50%+ water change to reset' everything back to "Monday" again.
With EI dosing you don't need to worry about testing nutrient levels.

Could the EI dosing method work for reef tanks ??

 

[topjimmy]

I kept a high light/CO2 fresh water plant tank for a few years. One of the more popular ways of adding fertilizers is the EI dosing method. Basically it's where you dose your ferts all week long, then on "Sunday" you do a minimum 50%+ water change to reset' everything back to "Monday" again.
With EI dosing you don't need to worry about testing nutrient levels.

Could the EI dosing method work for reef tanks ??

I would say that it might be ok but it would cost a lot from the salt mix. Easier to just test for what you add.

 

[23Andy23]

That's what I do with my 3 and 5 gallons, but as the water volume gets bigger the effectiveness goes down. My pico's water changes are their only means of filtration, my big system I do everything I can to keep from relying or needing water changes because it's just not practical

 

[jccaclimber]

I ran a high light CO2 tank with EI for a decade or so. There are a few important assumptions about EI that do not hold true for reef tanks:
1) The actual water for large changes is cheap, particularly in comparison to testing.
2) The weekly addition of any given dosed substance is less than the difference between the nominal value and the maximum value (this is not true for alk in particular). In effect you just need to have enough of something, and having too much is not a significant risk.
3) There are no issues with sudden reduction of substances.

With some alk measurement you could pretty easily set up something like EI, but changing that much water is expensive on a reef. Admittedly people who don’t really have tuned in dosing and change a lot of water are effectively don’t this.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I kept a high light/CO2 fresh water plant tank for a few years. One of the more popular ways of adding fertilizers is the EI dosing method. Basically it's where you dose your ferts all week long, then on "Sunday" you do a minimum 50%+ water change to reset' everything back to "Monday" again.
With EI dosing you don't need to worry about testing nutrient levels.

Could the EI dosing method work for reef tanks ??

Only if you know how much if what is consumed. You likely do not.

 

[Gareth elliott]

Plants are much less effected by over dosing than coral. With Estimated Index you are always going through cyclical periods of over abundance. Then preforming the corrective water change.

On a freshwater system, this occurs in nature during wet/dry seasons. So the creatures evolved this way.

I honestly moved away from EI on my planted. its easier for me to estimate usage using a hanna po4 checker once a month, and adjusting the other solutions in proportion.

 

[BMXfetish]

I thought maybe it would work on smaller tanks.... guess not.