Daily dosing?

[rhunter513]

I am intertesed in how many nano reefers dose their tanks daily to maintain ionic balance - alk, ca? When I first got into this hobby, I was instructed by a trust reef keeping expert that I needed to dose daily to maintain ionic balance. At first I had really good results but then things got really really bad with an aweful hair aglae outbreak. When things got so bad that I gave up and my tank and I stopped dosing then the HA finally started to go away. Today, I don't do any testing except SG for water changes and no dosing and my tank has never looked better.

[dsn112]

Alot of dosing has to do with you salt mix and your coral population. Also your water change regiment.

 

I dose B-Ionic on the second week as I change water every two weeks. My tank does great!

[rhunter513]

I understand that dosing does depend on a number of factors but to make the poll simple, I am just looking for a general idea of what people do. My tank is pretty mixed but no high light SPS. Its a 24g nanocube and I do weekly 5g water changes with IO reef crystals.

 

So dsn112 you dose your tank the week you don't do a water change, daily? Do you test your alk and ca regularly or just kinda guess?

[reefer916]

I have a 24 gallon mixed reef with a variety of SPS, LPS, and softees. I do 5 gallon weekly water changes and 1 gallon daily water changes. I dose Strontium, Mag, Trace, Coral-vite, every 2-3 days. I noticed that my Mag stays pretty stable, but does drop if I don't dose. It stays at about 1400 consistently. I've tested Alk every few weeks and add a little buffer, but it's always at 9. I use Reef Crystals as well. I dose Calcium almost daily and keep it between 440-450. I also dose Kent Iodide daily, but only about 4-5 drops.

 

It seems that with the daily water changes and a little dosing everything has been very stable. I've been testing this strategy for the last 4 months and my test results come out the same. No major swings. I believe I have a decent coral load, which is over 30 kinds of various species. I've noticed the more SPS the more calcium and mag I need to dose

[rhunter513]

I have a 24 gallon mixed reef with a variety of SPS, LPS, and softees. I do 5 gallon weekly water changes and 1 gallon daily water changes. I dose Strontium, Mag, Trace, Coral-vite, every 2-3 days. I noticed that my Mag stays pretty stable, but does drop if I don't dose. It stays at about 1400 consistently. I've tested Alk every few weeks and add a little buffer, but it's always at 9. I use Reef Crystals as well. I dose Calcium almost daily and keep it between 440-450. I also dose Kent Iodide daily, but only about 4-5 drops.

 

It seems that with the daily water changes and a little dosing everything has been very stable. I've been testing this strategy for the last 4 months and my test results come out the same. No major swings. I believe I have a decent coral load, which is over 30 kinds of various species. I've noticed the more SPS the more calcium and mag I need to dose

 

What's your daily water change system? Daily dosing, water changes, feeding, etc seems like a lot of work. I adopted the "less is more" approach to keeping my nano and it seems to be working. But I too have added some more LPS and SPS corals that need more ca, alk and mag and I am trying to figure out what will work best for the least amount of tinkering. And I especially don't want to go back to daily dosing and the possibility of a HA outbreak.

[kv2wr1]

I'll test my water parameters twice a week to be safe, but I haven't had to dose since I switch salt mixes.

[doctaq]

i cant imagine doing causing the HA

were you also dosing any amino acid, coral fuel supplement type things?

 

alk and ca generally will not affect the presence of nitrates or phosphates which are what cause algae to grow.

[rhunter513]

doctaq - yeah I didn't mean to conclude that dosing caused the HA. I have no science as to what stopped the HA outbreak in my tank. I just know that the combination of stopping dosing and shading the tank is what stopped it. I was only dosing B-ionic equal parts daily, no other buffer or suppliments. I deduce that dosing fueled the HA but it didn't cause it...again no real science there. There is a lot of history and context to my situation with the HA, the things I learned and tried to rid it. Nothing worked until I competely gave up on my tank and began to neglect it. I stopped all dosing, changed the water maybe once every three weeks and just feed the fish. Next thing you now all the HA came up with a water change. Now it seems 'less is more' when it comes to that nano - its never looked better.

 

There is a lot of science/rules when it come to reef tank keeping yet not a lot that is specific to small nano tanks. Meaning what works for a 100g reef might not work for a 24g nano.

 

Anyway, keep the post coming.

 

Maybe I should start a different thread - I want to hear from folks who take the hands off approach, break all the rules and have a beautiful healthy tank.

[reefer916]

What's your daily water change system? Daily dosing, water changes, feeding, etc seems like a lot of work. I adopted the "less is more" approach to keeping my nano and it seems to be working. But I too have added some more LPS and SPS corals that need more ca, alk and mag and I am trying to figure out what will work best for the least amount of tinkering. And I especially don't want to go back to daily dosing and the possibility of a HA outbreak.

 

It's actually not too bad. I usually spend a little time looking at my tank everyday and I just do my tank maintainance as I'm looking at the tank.

 

I have a 30 gallon Brute trash can with 15-30 gallons of fresh SW with RO and Reef Crystals. It has two large powerheads in there that keep the temp stable and the water circulating.

 

I have a 24 gallon Aquapod without a protein skimmer and it just has a carbon and phosban media bag with two filter pads in the back. I usually just use a small container and collect the top 2 inches or so and replace with clean SW. Then I take my bottles of mag, stront, cal, coralvite, and trace elements and add about 1/8 of a capful of each. Except the Mag and Calcium, I dose the calcium about a half capful and the mag about 1/4 capful. Iodide I dose daily with about 5 drops.

 

I feed my tank daily a combo of phyto, oyster, and arctipods about 10 drops or so each per day. I'll usually do this a few hours before my water change or in the morning and do the water change when I get home. I also hand feed my Acans, Trumpets, Blastos, about three days a week. The fish get a few mysis shrimp daily when I feed my other tank.

 

All in all the actual daily maintains takes about 10 minutes. That doesn't mean that I spend 10 minutes on my tanks daily. I'm always messing with them or looking at them. The typical reef addiction:)

 

Nice thing is that since the water is constantly being replenished the excess food doesn't have time to breakdown. I have seen some algae growing on the powerheads and all I do is a little larger water change and feed the tank every other day till it's gone. Hope the info helps

[Guest nanoreefchris]

generally speaking, dosing is good.

[rhunter513]

reefer916 yeah that helps, thanks, yet it does seem like a lot of work. My tank does poorly the more I mess with it and have my hands in it.

 

It looks like most people do some dosing just not daily which is what I will probably end up doing. Thanks for participating in the poll.

[bluefunelement]

I dose B-Ionic on the second week as I change water every two weeks. My tank does great!

 

+1

If you are way off when testing weekly then you can dose every other day - but a little dosing on the opposite day/week you water change should do it for many tanks. Less likely to overdose or get burnt out

[Akwarius]

I've had good growth and stability dosing b-ionic daily. It took a while to find the correct dosage for the livestock, and ended up way less than the manufacturers recommended amount. 5ml for 60gallons.

[rhunter513]

I've had good growth and stability dosing b-ionic daily. It took a while to find the correct dosage for the livestock, and ended up way less than the manufacturers recommended amount. 5ml for 60gallons.

 

I dosed b-ionic equal parts daily for over a year. I had really good initial results with awesome corelline algae growth, etc. I am sure I was dosing too much also - 10ml for 24g - most of it would precipitate onto my heater and pumps - I was having to change out and vingar soak impellors every two weeks. The crazy thing for me is that things improved so much after I stopped dosing - to which I concluded that somehow the dosing helped to feed the HA. I am considering starting back to dosing the b-ionic (I still have a lot of it left) but just not sure if I will go daily, every other day, bi-weekly, etc. I know it all depends of what my levels test at and what my tank needs but I really don't have a lot of confidence in any test kits - I used salifert - and I just don't want to go back to testing a ton and getting all focused on the numbers again.

 

I might start with testing every day for week after a water change to see if I can get an idea of what my tank consumes in between water changes. That or I will just start doing 5ml equal parts every other day and see what happens. Any more advice would be great

 

Thanks for the post!