dosing

[NeverEnough87]

new to the game my tank has been up for 3 months 100 gallon only have a foxface in atm I wanna do a reef tank i was wondering if i should start adding cal alk mag in now or wait a few more months and when can i start adding corals.....noob question here sorry =(

[kurt_n]

There's no need to dose anything right now. Assuming you're using a decent commercially available salt mix, you have all the cal/alk/mag you need. The only time you need to start dosing is when your coral growth is stripping those elements out of the water faster than you can put them back in with water changes. And the only way you'll know that is by testing for cal/alk/mag. #1 rule to keep in mind - if you aren't testing for it, don't dose it. Coralline algae can also strip cal/alk out of the water, so if you have lots of coralline, you might want to keep tabs on those numbers now and see if you see a trend.

As far as adding corals, as long as your water parameters are good and stable, you could probably add corals now. That foxface may nibble at them, so keep that in mind.

[Sk8r]

If you want stony coral, your light needs to be T5 for reef or MH or equivalent; and you need the parameters I have in my sig line. You should be using reef salt, which is a bit more expensive (I use Oceanic) and you should adjust until you hit these parameters. You should prepare to dose kalk into your topoff water once you have a stony coral or clam in your tank. On the other hand if you have softies, you don't need to worry about calcium (kalk) if you do your regular water changes: the salt mix will handle it.

[NeverEnough87]

My salt mix is red sea coral plus and I have 2 hydra 52 about 8 inch from the water all my parameters are stable I guess I'll be putting corals in thanks you guys

[dkeller_nc]

If you're putting stony corals in now, it would be worthwhile to get ahead of the curve and buy a couple of good test kits for Alk and Ca and the chemicals needed for 2-part dosing. It's true that you can probably keep up for a little while with water changes, but there are other mechanisms that remove Calcium and alkalinity from the water other stony coral growth. It can be quite tedious to try to maintain parameters with weekly 10% or more water changes, particularly if you're doing it with buckets.

[NeverEnough87]

I have the red sea test kit what should my cal mag alk read?

[downbeach]

I have the red sea test kit what should my cal mag alk read?

Here's a good article on those parameters:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

I would also recommend these:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-03/rhf/index.php
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-04/rhf/index.php
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-05/rhf/index.php
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/rhf/index.php

[NeverEnough87]

great stuff thank

[downbeach]

edited