Looking to start dosing

[S_OS]

Hello, I have just started my reef tank a little over a year and a half ago, and in that time, I have converted my 30 gallon tank from fowlr to reef. First starting with Softies and Zoas. Of course I did not stop there and eventually bought a single head Hammer coral (which has now branched to four heads in less than a year). Soon I was bringing in more hard corals, and less soft ones, including two birdnests.

About two weeks ago I felt it was finally time to add one of my favorite creatures to my reef tank, a Deresa Clam. The clam is doing great and has opened up fully within a few hours, it lives in the sandbed and is not disturbed by anything nor does it have to worry about predators.

However this is where things start to go a little bad. The clam is about a little over 2 inches but the thing is sucking up my calcium and alk. On a grand scale, this guy has dropped my tank from 400 ppm to 360 ca in 24 hours, and KH from 7 to 5 dkh. Of course it doesn't help with all the corals, snails, shrimp, and coraline absorbing my calcium and kh but with the clam in, it's just going down way too fast. I do plan on testing my water again tomorrow morning to see where I stand. However, I just want to know a few things, I can provide more info if anyone needs, but for now, my questions are:

Should I instead change my water weekly instead of bi-weekly? I use Instant Reef Salt.

Can I dose manually? I have no sump but I do have an auto-top off.

Which two part would you recommend? Preferably something that is in liquid form.

Thank you all, I'll also try and get photos soon to show the tank off.

 

[Flippers4pups]

With a tank that size, I would try kalkwasser in a ATO reservoir and hand dose alkalinity. Water changes weekly.

Here's a good read on calcium and alkalinity:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

And a calculator for dosing:

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

[Butuz]

You could also consider a mini doser, like Kamoer X1. You can also daisy chain a few of them off a single power source. ATO Kalk mixing can get messy, but cheaper. Dosing is more costly, but easier and more stable from my experience.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/x1-bluetooth-micropump-kamoer.html

 

[S_OS]

Hello everyone, sorry for no updates, I have been very busy as of late.

Okay, I forgot to mention, I was using an API test kit. It would explain why one day my calc was at 360 and the next day at 400, no, I am going to buy a better test kit, imagine I started dosing...

I like the idea of dosing Kalk, it sounds great, probably will kill my ato pump so if anyone has any other way of dosing Kalk, do tell, lol

 

[SeZMehK]

Hello everyone, sorry for no updates, I have been very busy as of late.

Okay, I forgot to mention, I was using an API test kit. It would explain why one day my calc was at 360 and the next day at 400, no, I am going to buy a better test kit, imagine I started dosing...

I like the idea of dosing Kalk, it sounds great, probably will kill my ato pump so if anyone has any other way of dosing Kalk, do tell, lol

You can drip kalk into your system.

 

[intricate_reefer]

A 2 dkh drop in 24hrs seems like a lot for what you have in the tank. My 30g only drops .5 dkh a day and I have a lot of Lps and some Sps. My tank is only 6 months old so maybe you have more coralline or my corals just are not growing as good.

I would definitely look into getting a better test kit though. I recommend the Hanna Alk checker. Once you figure out what your really using you can decide what to dose. One option for a smaller tank with not a lot of consumption is tropic Marin all for reef. It’s Alk, Cal, Mag, and trace elements in one solution. I’m going to start dosing this on my 10g frag tank starting soon. It’s more expensive than 2 part but might be worth it to you. My plan is to use all for reef with the Kamoer X1 Bluetooth Micro pump for the 10g. On my 30g I’m using ESV Bionic 2 part with a Neptune DOS.

I had thought about using Kalk in my top off but evaporation varies through the year and figured it would be more of a pain to dial in compared to a Doser.