New to Dosing and need advice

[Mikeltee]

Ok, excellent. I've been doin this for a while and can't help but think you have been duped, like others.

Please elaborate? A friend on here did get rid of his skimmer and doesn't do water changes for over a year while relying on his SM ATS. I went 2 years without a water change and 1 year with the skimmer offline on a 10 year old mature tank and the nutrients stayed low. This tank is 2 months young. I feel that the water changes are a necessity at this point until that coraline takes hold.

 

[Mikeltee]

I might add that the only reason I am doing such a large water change is because I am scrubbing the hell out of the rocks every Saturday to get all the nasties off of them. I do the WC immediately afterwards.

 

[Macbalacano]

Research tells me AFR is the way once you have your alk and Ca where you want them. How have you not broke down and bought a $60 jaebo 4 head is baffling me. I couldn't imagine dosing by hand 6 times daily. I thought I was nuts feeding my pod cultures 2-3 times a day.

Haha i was getting close after a week. Then I decided to order AFR with the Kamoer but it was going with a livestock shipment that I couldn’t accept for a couple more weeks.

 

[Mikeltee]

Haha i was getting close after a week. Then I decided to order AFR with the Kamoer but it was going with a livestock shipment that I couldn’t accept for a couple more weeks.

I've had the OG Kamoer x1 since it came out. The only issue is that the power nipple is rusted. I'm now dosing over 2l daily of ATO w/Kalk. They are solid for sure! The small tubing sucks but it nothing is perfect. I hope that the AFR works out for you. I don't think that I could trust the Jaebo for too long anyways, but people don't complain about them. I recently got a Reefbreeders x4 but I can't get it to recognize on the app. That's what I get for buying into a 7 year old system that had reported trouble out of the gate.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Research tells me AFR is the way once you have your alk and Ca where you want them. How have you not broke down and bought a $60 jaebo 4 head is baffling me. I couldn't imagine dosing by hand 6 times daily. I thought I was nuts feeding my pod cultures 2-3 times a day.

I highly recomend the joyreef diy dosing pump setup. Made 6 heads cheap, have leftover parts of everything for repairs, easy project. I had no electrical experience going into it. Been running for a year with no issues, and its controled through a cloud dashboard which is fun.

You can get the highest quality dosing heads for way cheaper than buying a unit you then wouldn't really be able to fix if it goes wrong.

 

[Mikeltee]

I highly recomend the joyreef diy dosing pump setup. Made 6 heads cheap, have leftover parts of everything for repairs, easy project. I had no electrical experience going into it. Been running for a year with no issues, and its controled through a cloud dashboard which is fun.

You can get the highest quality dosing heads for way cheaper than buying a unit you then wouldn't really be able to fix if it goes wrong.

I wish you would have posted this a few days ago before I got mine locally. It's always nice to meet a fellow reefer!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

NOW you tell me this Randy!!!

Lol

Been telling folks since at least 2018. The effect is not especially large, but it’s very strange for a company to make that mistake, and it feeds the idea that some folks have that alk and calcium demand often do not match.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...y-alk-calcium-balanced-for-1-1-dosing.352635/

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Personally I think this is the simplest method and while it might not be the cheapest, it is certainly very economical.

It is certainly true that AFR is among the simplest methods. It does lack some benefits that other methods provide, such as any pH boost or the ability to easily deal with slight alk and calcium demand mismatches.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Research tells me AFR is the way once you have your alk and Ca where you want them. How have you not broke down and bought a $60 jaebo 4 head is baffling me. I couldn't imagine dosing by hand 6 times daily. I thought I was nuts feeding my pod cultures 2-3 times a day.

It would not be my pick, but it’s a fine method. :)

 

[Mikeltee]

It would not be my pick, but it’s a fine method. :)

What is your preferred method? Dosing what you need from you own recipe? I probably would too of I had a phD in Chem lol

I failed to mention that I also dose kalk in my ato every other hour during lights out. I'm still trying to dial the concentration. The next batch will be 6g/gal. Currently using 2l/day

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/randys-dream-methodology.374726/
In terms of water chemistry maintenance, I'd maintain calcium and alkalinity with limewater/kalkwasser (maybe pH limited to pH 8.55 or less to prevent overdose; probably on dosing timer rather than ATO) and a two part (if needed; maybe also pH limited to pH 8.55 or less). I'd like a continuous alk monitor, and if Mindstream or Seneye comes on line with reliable data, I'd monitor ammonia 24/7 and in different system locations (main tank, exit from refugium, etc.) for interests sake.

 

[Mikeltee]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/randys-dream-methodology.374726/
In terms of water chemistry maintenance, I'd maintain calcium and alkalinity with limewater/kalkwasser (maybe pH limited to pH 8.55 or less to prevent overdose; probably on dosing timer rather than ATO) and a two part (if needed; maybe also pH limited to pH 8.55 or less). I'd like a continuous alk monitor, and if Mindstream or Seneye comes on line with reliable data, I'd monitor ammonia 24/7 and in different system locations (main tank, exit from refugium, etc.) for interests sake.

How strong of a concentration will you do kalkwasser? Whatever it takes to get your numbers inline with the amount of evaporation in your tank? I have the benefit of having year round ambient temps being in the basement so the evaporation will always be a constant.

 

[Mikeltee]

I find it interesting that you would dose all of that stuff yet do a few % auto water change daily. I assume that would be to combat coral warfare.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How strong of a concentration will you do kalkwasser? Whatever it takes to get your numbers inline with the amount of evaporation in your tank? I have the benefit of having year round ambient temps being in the basement so the evaporation will always be a constant.

In the first 10 years or so, I used less than saturated kalkwasser in my ato. I upped it to saturated kalkwasser to replace all evaporated water as the tank matured and as the need for more pH boost was caused by new storm windows.

 

[Mikeltee]

I made a fresh batch of ATO and went from 1T/gal to 4g/gal Kalkwasser. That coupled with the Bionic is really giving me a nice pH boost. I am happy. In a week, I plan to add AFR into the mix and then a few months down the road, 10% ESV Mg. I really hope this gets my coralline going. I'm tired of looking at the uglys. I just started dosing Silicates as well and plan to tune to 1ppm. I don't know if it's a placebo effect or not, but a day after I started the bionic, all my Softies seemed to have really perked up. The nem is super happy as well.

Can anyone weigh in on coralline? I have mostly dry rock but my seed has a good amount of coralline. Should I just leave it be or should I scrape it to get it in the water column? My small CUC is pretty crusty as well.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

I’ve used a product called purple helix. Which I believe is coralline spore. It worked pretty good
ya crushing and scraping helps the spread too

if you have t5 lights put them on the tank for awhile they seem to grow it the fastest in my tanks

 

[Mikeltee]

I’ve used a product called purple helix. Which I believe is coralline spore. It worked pretty good
ya crushing and scraping helps the spread too

if you have t5 lights put them on the tank for awhile they seem to grow it the fastest in my tanks

I'm considering Helix on my 130g that has no seed. TSA also sells slabs of coralline for much cheaper than Helix. I don't have any T5s anymore. That's an interesting observation though. I appreciate you mentioning it.

 

[Mikeltee]

Dosing is going well and I am holding stable alk at 8.1. What is the water change protocol? Do I using a dosing calculator to figure out how much extra that I need to keep it stable? Eventually, I won't do water changes but the tank is new so I am doing 25% (10gal) to keep the uglies at a minimum. Ill reevaluate once the coralline sets up. That's a pretty significant swing...

I use Fritz blue box so at least it has a good starting point. I figure I should use a dosing calculator to figure out what I need and dose it all in one shot an hour apart of the 2 parts of course.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Dosing is going well and I am holding stable alk at 8.1. What is the water change protocol? Do I using a dosing calculator to figure out how much extra that I need to keep it stable?

Are you asking about a specific scenario? Keep what stable?

In general, how much, if any, water to change depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

 

[Mikeltee]

Are you asking about a specific scenario? Keep what stable?

In general, how much, if any, water to change depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

The goal would be to keep Alk and Ca stable with a water change, but after doing a bit of research, it appears this Fritz Blue box should be pretty much right on the money. A few 10ths shouldn't hurt anything. It's margin of error is 8.1 to 8.5 and the goal is to hold 8.2. I don't think that I have anything to worry about.