Dosing Sps tank

Well now that I have a very dominate Sps tank I am just curious everyone else has to dose there tanks? I am testing weekly and needing to add weekly. its been about 3 weeks since i did the big add and have a calcium reactor that I have not hooked up yet but am planning. Can anyone throw out there dosing schedule so I can try to figure out the normal. 220gallon tank all parameters are great just looking for dosing. Thanks

Mike

 

Hi Mike

it varies to be honest
I have a 5ft SPS frag and colony tank that demands just over 0.25 DKH on a daily basis
and approximately 6ppm calcium
magnesium - Its about 20ppm per week at present for me ( Coraline has really started to develop rapidly)

I have read account of people who have to dose to compensate for up to 2 DKH in a 24 hour period ( with large very developed SPS set ups)

Steve

 

Steve,

I feel that untill I get the calcium reactor up and running that I will be dosing at least one time a week if not multiple. I literally closed down a fellow reefers sps dominate tank and got all his stuff only to add it all to my tank over the last couple weeks. I would perfer not to let it die as sps is what I wanted. I am just feeling it out there. so you also need to add dkh in your tank also? I have been pretty stable with that but am watching everything. I just got the last of it in my tank and do not want to lose any of it. Some browned up but it showing color again.

 

Yes
Corals utilise Calcium and carbonates (DKH) for skeletal growth thus you do need to compensate for both


but you do right, in testing each week and then working out the demand before dosing anything

I tested twice weekly for a couple of weeks in order to fine tune my dosing
so I worked out what I thought was required, started dosing that and then checked it over 4 tests during the next couple of weeks to ensure the levels where not decreasing or increasing

Steve

 

Well I had not tested the dkh this week so its actually been 2 1/2 weeks since that has been tested. tomorrow is testing day so I will see what that is also. know this makes me more on top of it

 

I dose 30ppm per day Ca and 1.75meq/l per day alk on my 112 gallon system.

 

You probably need to dose everyday. I know when I dosed my tank, I was doing 20 doses a day at 12 ml, so 240ml per day of each product. If you have a lot of SPS, you have to dose the tank everyday, and a little at a time. Swings in alk, are the kiss of death for most SPS. That is why whatever your dosing needs are, you have to break it up and do a little at a time.

Also whatever you parameters are, you want to be in balance. So you want to have something like 420 Ca/ 8.0 dkh/1350 Mg...if you want to keep it higher, say Ca of 450, then you should raise the others accordingly.
Look at this, it will give you an idea of what your dosing needs would be
http://reef.diesyst.com/flashcalc/flashcalc.html

 

Thank you! great info

 

For the record, using BRS solutions of calcium carbonate and soda ash, I dose 240ml/day and 220 ml/day, respectively (20ppm and 0.93meq/l). My system has a total water volume of ~120gal.