Coral and dosing.. or not!

[NanoTank1]

I've read a bit about how SPS coral needs dosing. My question is, is that always the case? And does it apply equally to LPS? And do large water changes mitigate the impact of not dosing??

 

The only coral I have had to date is soft coral. I have a relatively new 11 gallon tank and would like to try some birdsnest coral at some point. Manually dosing each day is out of the question. And I would rather not buy dosing equipment. Am I out of luck??

 

 

[pegasus]

For the first 2-3 months I never dosed in my 30 gallon. Just 20% water changes a week and my calcium, alk, mg stayed perfect. Now in my 45 I still do the same process but I do dose amino acids with great success. Particularly with my ponape birdsnest and blue tip tenius. I was using KZ's Phol's coral vitalizer and sponge power. Since KZ is expensive I just recently started to use acro power for amino acids. I'm impressed so far after three days of use.

 

But I did also start using NSW which from other peoples experience makes the corals perk up.

 

In other words I wouldn't really bother on a system that small since you could make the params swing by dosing. Just do water changes weekly and maybe some amino acids. Just watch your phosphates and nitrates.

[NanoTank1]

Excellent. Thanks for the info.

[pegasus]

No problem! If you do use acro power or kz be sure to take in account for water displacement when you are figuring out how much to put in your tank.