When to start dosing?

[Max93]

I think most people are in agreement these days that keeping both at zero is not a good idea. Even "ultra low" doesn't mean zero.

The best thing is to do is just watch your corals. Note when they look good and when they look bad. See what the correlation is with your nutrient levels at those moments. Over time you will start to get a feel for what your tank wants. And hopefully by then you won't care what the number is, but instead what makes your animals happy

It makes sense and I’m starting to get into the mindset of “this is a tiny ecosystem” and it’s needs are different than the next tank. Would you say bad growth = too low nutrients? Or is it just trial and error.

 

[undermind]

Would you say bad growth = too low nutrients? Or is it just trial and error.

By "bad growth" do you mean poor or slow growth of corals? I'm cautious to generalize that much because so many tanks run so many different nutrient levels. But it's possible that growth could be limited by low nutrients in some cases, sure. Especially if other things are comparatively high, like Alk, par, etc.

While there are lots of reasons to avoid bottoming out nutrients, dinos is the big one for me. Since most tanks are started with dry rock these days, dinos are more inclined to take off in those tanks when they've been allowed to bottom out the nutrients, especially phosphate. It's an ideal environment for them. And once you get a bad case of them, they tend to come and go more freely. This is the stuff that makes people quit. So I don't like the idea of hitting zero on phosphate. Ever.

But anyway, I think you're doing a great job with your thoughtfulness and testing. If you remain diligent with watching your numbers and correlating those numbers to things you see in your tank, then you'll be good. And eventually you'll be able to "feel" the numbers without testing every time. When I test, I like to guess the value before I see it. It's fun and kind of trains you to understand the values your tank wants.

 

[Max93]

Some updates:

stopped dosing vodka - I noticed some burnt tips on some frags, a couple died. As soon as I stopped dosing vodka + 20% water change, the remaining frags have much more PE than I thought they could have and also started encrusting. Too clean maybe, I don’t know but it seems to have had a positive effect.
in addition, I removed the algae turf scrubber. I felt like it was causing more problems than benefits because it was taking out all nutrients from the water alongside the vodka dosing. Also, I felt like there was some die off going on and back into the water column from there.

I’m thinking of getting rid of my filter socks as well, sick of changing them out every other day.

My alk went from 8.0 to 7.3 within 24 hours of doing this. Calcium from 420 to 400 and magnesium from 1350 to 1320.
i dosed Aquaforest manually, raised it to 7.7 based on the Aquaforest calculator to increase it from 7.3 to 7.6 (note the .1 difference, I think this is because my water volume is probably slightly less than what I think but a .4 increase in one day doesn’t seem like a concern). I think I was starving my tank from nutrients, and I’m going to make this simpler.

This morning I tested again, and no consumption so looks like my consumptions are happening during lights on.

My skimmer is also producing much more skimmate now, like mud. I’m surprised this wasn’t happening with the vodka. To replace the filter socks, I’m thinking of getting some blocks, we will see.

 

[Max93]

7.3 alk at lights out. Dosed 79ml Aquaforest each component, back to 7.7.

tomorrow I will test again in 24 hours, hopefully I will be at 7.3 again and I will officially turn on the auto doser.

looks like consumption is .4 every day