Dosing Products?

[Koddie Doo]

I know that there are a ton of people that will jump all over a post like this that say "they don't put anything in the tank that they can not test for". I get that. But there are some people out there that use products like Purple up, Stronium, Iodine... those are who I am looking for.

Why are dosing what you dose and what are you dosing? do you test? what effect has it had on your tank?

[110galreef]

250g tank & 40g frag tank

SPS dominate, LPS, clams, and softies.

I have bubble magus triple doser. Ran my tank for about 8 mos just dosing CAL & ALK. I amnually add MG as i lose very little.

I am not a believer of the weekly WC's. And my water params stay perfect w/o weekly WC's
CAL: 425
ALK: 9.3
PO4 avg. .0184-.0213
Nitrate:0

i go 3-4 weeks between 10% WC's. Thereofor I feel I am probably losing some trace elements between skimming/carbon and corals. (maybe maybe not??)

So i recently began dosing 2ml/day of Kent essential elements. I add it to my calcium solution so it doses numerous times a day oppsed to on it's own channel. 2ml is nothing. I dose such a small amount that i don't test at all nor worry about adding to much.

Colors look great too and better growth. ( could be the combination of braodcast feeding 1-2x's per week now as well) Maybe all for not, but at 2ml/day it costs me less than $30/yr. Alot cheaper than the extra salt i'd use for WC's and saves tons of time. Seachem Reef Plus maybe another similiar to try. But adds Vit C, B12 & Amino's. Maybe too much extra's.

Now if you need to do WC's to lower PO4 & nitrates, I wouldn't use this method.

Other things to consider would be filter foods like marine snow or such to dose Get ones that don't need refrigerated. Dosed at night when feeder tentacles are out?

I prefer to feed these manually though and when I can turn of my return pumps. I like reef roids/ coral frenzy, brightwell zooplanktos. My corals love this stuff and colors have shown.

I tried Amino Acids and saw nothing!

As for most other supps. I believe mktg hype. Most are really not even used by our systems.

[snorvich]

I know that there are a ton of people that will jump all over a post like this that say "they don't put anything in the tank that they can not test for". I get that. But there are some people out there that use products like Purple up, Stronium, Iodine... those are who I am looking for.



So basically you only want to hear from people who agree with you?

[Palting]

I have a mixed reef, heavy on SPS, with excellent growth. I test for alk and calcium frequently, pH and magnesium occasionally. For a year, I was able to keep up with the coral demands simply with 10% water changes done weekly using Reef Crystals and an SG of 1.026.

About 1 year in, as the coral and coraline got larger and more numerous, demand started to exceed the capacity of the 10% weekly water changes. Alk started to go down, calcium and mag remained stable.

I now had a choice on how to keep up with the increased demand. Either start dosing, or increase the water changes. I decded to dose.

I started with soda bicarb, simply to replace the alk. Easily done. Baking soda in the ATO. After a month or so, I noticed a slight downward drift in the Calcium, to 400.

So, I switched to 2 part and stopped the soda bicarb. Took a bit longer and more volume to replace the calcium to get it back up to 420, using equal parts of the 2 part only. Got the calcium up and steady with daily dosing, then noticed the alk started to drop again. I thought it was silly to up the daily dosing of 2 part since it was only the alk that was dropping, so I started soda bicarb in the ATO again.

So that's how I arrived at my current regimen. Majority of replacement comes in via 10% weekly water changes, supplemented by daily 2 part dosing, supplented by baking soda in the ATO. Levels stable with Alk 8-9 dKH, calcium 420-440, Mag 1350 rock steady, pH 8.2-8.4, SG 1.026.

There are as many ways to do this as there are aquarists. I have been successful with this, so far.

Adding minerals, vitamins, iodine, color enhancers, growth enhancers, Purple Up........IMO is sales hype. I believe all the trace elements needed, like iodine, are in the salt, replenished when you do water changes. So, I am not one of those that spend that money on what I consider to be snake oil :).

[Palting]

I know that there are a ton of people that will jump all over a post like this that say "they don't put anything in the tank that they can not test for". I get that. But there are some people out there that use products like Purple up, Stronium, Iodine... those are who I am looking for.Why are dosing what you dose and what are you dosing? do you test? what effect has it had on your tank?

So basically you only want to hear from people who agree with you?

Ooops. Sorry, didn't pick up on that. Just disregard my post above.

[Koddie Doo]

So basically you only want to hear from people who agree with you?

If that was the case I would never hear from my wife .... I want to get insight from those that buy "snake oils" and what the results are...