What are you dosing? Sps keepers.

[EliMelly]

They were gone in 3 days after putting a uv online.. I haven’t had a problem since but the uv is still running lol..

nice!!!

 

[Troylee]

What are people using to dose phosphates up on here besides food and reef roids? I’m using trisodium phosphate and every now and then I use reef roids to feed the coral.. pellets seem to spike my p04 when I’m out of town and got an auto feeder going.

 

[Arkayology]

Haven’t tested in a few weeks since the Dino’s! Guess it’s time to up my ammonia and phosphate dosing! .037 on the p04

You dosing any of that Kahlúa?

 

[Arkayology]

What are people using to dose phosphates up on here besides food and reef roids? I’m using trisodium phosphate and every now and then I use reef roids to feed the coral.. pellets seem to spike my p04 when I’m out of town and got an auto feeder going.

I'm using Brightwell NeoPhos. It's cheap and it works.

 

[Troylee]

You dosing any of that Kahlúa?

Nope! Can’t stand that stuff and I don’t do coffe! Haha.. it prolly expired 10 years ago who knows

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

He designed a controller and 6ft tall chamber with a wc thingy to adjust salinity etc.. he can pretty much flat his ph at any level he wants! It’s crazy! Dudes a genius at that stuff!

Well, thanks for kind appraisal.

I want to see/hear more! My pH is decent. Im just impatient and want more growth. I wasn’t monitoring pH yet when I did my ATO with Kalk trial. But this is with AFR only.

My set up can only be successful once there's an adequate demand for calcium carbonate, then you supercharge the tank with kalk, using it to target a specific pH.

The downside with kalk is that you can only dose the amount your tank evaporates.

That's when I came up with an AWC that works with the kalk reactor that removes old saltwater as a mixture of kalk and concentrated brine (saltwater) mix together to create the same salinity (35ppt). The calculations are all done in the software and all I have to do is input what I mix my concentrated brine to. Usually 2 bags in a 55g drum comes to around +/-60ppt.

So all I have to do is keep the kalk reactor saturated and mix up concentrated salt every once in while.

I buy kalk in the 50lb bags and portion them out in 1lb heat sealed bags. Then every 3-5 weeks (depending on pH inside the reactor) I add a 1lb bag of kalk, hence the reason for a 5 foot reactor chamber.

Here's a sample of what the kalk controller and 2AWC does for my pH.

Post in thread 'My rendition of 300' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-rendition-of-300.550019/post-12341128

It's cited a few times in my thread, along with videos if my setup.

I might have a thread here about the kalk controller and 2AWC. But for sure it's over on the humblefish site.

More growth? My setup supercharges growth to the point certain corals grow rather quickly. For instance, it made me regret putting montipora cap in my tank because they're like weeds now. But to inject caution, there's plenty that can go wrong. You definitely have yo know what you're doing.

 

[areefer01]

Nope! Can’t stand that stuff and I don’t do coffe! Haha.. it prolly expired 10 years ago who knows

Hmm...what about if The Dude comes over?

 

[Arkayology]

Hmm...what about if The Dude comes over?

 

[Troylee]

Hmm...what about if The Dude comes over?

It depends which dude! He’s more than welcome to it thou haha!

 

[Troylee]

This is good stuff to dose! Vinegar is boring lol.. it can cause cyano after awhile thou.. that’s why I switched after all these years to bacto balance.

 

[areefer01]

This is good stuff to dose! Vinegar is boring lol.. it can cause cyano after awhile thou.. that’s why I switched after all these years to bacto balance.

Well can probably save a few bucks and use a cheaper Vodka. Unless it is one for the display then one for the hobbyist...

 

[Reef Rhino]

When you enjoy chemistry and like to tinker, you make time. I work 100% remotely and my home office space is in my basement about 12 feet from my sump and wet-lab. I do my daily dosing on my way upstairs at the end of the day as kind of a virtual commute to de-stress before I go face the family (currently including a 4 year old and 6 month old) :p

To each their own I suppose!

Wait until they are in their 20's .... You will never go back upstairs again. :face-with-tears-of-joy:

 

[Troylee]

Wait until they are in their 20's .... You will never go back upstairs again. :face-with-tears-of-joy:

Agreed! I got a 23,21,19 myself and my step kids are 19 and 16…

 

[HudsonReefer2.0]

Ok, I’ll tell ya…

 

[goosemans]

I’m dosing AFR, soda ash, and calcium chloride. I want to switch to kalk but I’m gonna have to tear down my tank in a few months unfortunately

 

[Troylee]

Ok, I’ll tell ya…

 

[skey44]

Hoping I can keep up this consistency. The 4/12 phos was after feeding so it tested high. Held off on a water change today. Everything (I test) looking good numbers wise from this week to last. Dosed some mag for correction through the week this week.
Corals look happy. Afr noob keeping it simple over here

That AWC/kalk setup sounds wild. I’ll have to dive into your thread!

 

[Troylee]

Hoping I can keep up this consistency. The 4/12 phos was after feeding so it tested high. Held off on a water change today. Everything (I test) looking good numbers wise from this week to last. Dosed some mag for correction through the week this week.
Corals look happy. Afr noob keeping it simple over here

That AWC/kalk setup sounds wild. I’ll have to dive into your thread!

That’s not my thread that’s @Sisterlimonpot

 

[Curiousbranching]

Honestly, based on my experience, the time when my tank looked the best and grew the fastest was when I was doing simple weekly 10% water changes and adjusting feeding based on coral color. Back then, I didn’t really care about trace elements. I just had an auto doser running some DIY all-in-one trace mix and never bothered with ICP tests to track levels.

Later on, when life got busier—or let’s be real, when I got lazier—I started doing ICP tests and dosing trace elements automatically using RMS-style formulas. Surprisingly, I didn’t notice any big difference between the two methods. Even though the ICP says my trace levels are on point with RMS, coral color still seems to depend mostly on nitrate and phosphate. (Or maybe both methods gave my corals enough trace elements, so the only real variable left was N and P.)


Honestly, with all the different reefing styles people are using these days, I feel like the real game-changer between tanks is lighting. Same tank, same corals, but when I switched from ATI Straton LEDs to a hybrid T5 Powermodule with LED bars, everything just took off. Coral growth exploded, and the colors got way deeper—like, “Instagram filter but real life” deeper.

 

[BillyW]

Honestly, based on my experience, the time when my tank looked the best and grew the fastest was when I was doing simple weekly 10% water changes and adjusting feeding based on coral color. Back then, I didn’t really care about trace elements. I just had an auto doser running some DIY all-in-one trace mix and never bothered with ICP tests to track levels.

Later on, when life got busier—or let’s be real, when I got lazier—I started doing ICP tests and dosing trace elements automatically using RMS-style formulas. Surprisingly, I didn’t notice any big difference between the two methods. Even though the ICP says my trace levels are on point with RMS, coral color still seems to depend mostly on nitrate and phosphate. (Or maybe both methods gave my corals enough trace elements, so the only real variable left was N and P.)


Honestly, with all the different reefing styles people are using these days, I feel like the real game-changer between tanks is lighting. Same tank, same corals, but when I switched from ATI Straton LEDs to a hybrid T5 Powermodule with LED bars, everything just took off. Coral growth exploded, and the colors got way deeper—like, “Instagram filter but real life” deeper.

dang that’s crazy, I have a power module and I’m thinking about switching to LEDs because if I don’t keep my house below 70 degrees my tank temp will creep up to 83-84.