My doser came in today =)

[jason604]

Man I'm very impressed with how fast my marine magic doser came in from Hong Kong. I ordered it last Monday and its already here

Overall I'm pretty impressed with how it looks and their A+++ customer service. I bargained with him n pretty much any1 that orders it that uses this forum will get free extra tubing, a extra motor, extra internal tubing and he will label it as gift with low value so we won't have to pay custom fees. It was 169$ usd shipping included so came up to n around 191$ Canadian. Can someone help me to find out how much cal and alk I need to dose daily? For cal I've been using purple up and alk is the searchem alk buffer.

[mark]

always nice when christmas comes again so soon.

You can continue to dose the same amounts of purpleup and seachem if working okay for you just spread out during the day or here's a link to the DIY 2 part dosing recipe (http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php/) and table 1 for suggested amounts.

[Baldy]

ive been using a marine magic doser for around 2 years now. it has worked awesome for me. just a heads up, extra internal tubing for the pump is definately a good thing to get. the other weekend i noticed my alk starting to drop and noticed that the doser had plugged off and was wearing on the tubing for a while now. no biggie as the replacement pumps are $13, but i wish i had some spare tubing to replace it with.

for the money, its well worth it.

[Coralgurl]

Here's info that was posted in a thread I had on dosing. You need to know how much of ca, mag and alk you are going through in a day/week in order to properly dose. So before doing anything, test over the next few days and see where things are at. Great advise below!


Have you figured out how much to dose to maintain your water parameters? Pick any time of day and do your water tests for all 3 (CAL, ALK and Magnesium). Go on the bulkreefsupply website and use their calculator to find out what you need to dose to raise your parameters back to normal levels. Dose your tank manually.

Now the next day do another test at the same time as the day before. Whatever the difference is, that will be your maintenance dose. Then depending on what is low (most likely ALK), increase it in equal parts. If you need to dose 15ML to raise the ALK up 1 dKH then make sure you dose the same amount for CAL. In the morning dose Calcium and in the evening Dose Alkalinity.

Keep at that pace for the next 3 days and then do another water check at that same time. Once the test results confirmed that your water parameters are that level that you want, it should be stable. Then setup your auto doser according to what you have it set for.

Every two weeks, do another water test and adjust your maintenance dose accordingly. If you do large water changes of 20% or more, your ALK will raise accordingly. This could STN or RTN some of your SPS corals. So my advice is to keep your ALK at a higher level not at 7 dKH.

[tang daddy]

If you already keep params up by say dosing 4 cap fulls of purple up then you know roughly you use 20ml per week so you dose 20 ml spread over 7 days.

I dose anywhere from 180 to 200 ml per day of cal so I spread it out over 20x in a 12hr period, my alk and mg dosed at the same time frame but on the next 12 hr period.

So this is my dosing chart:
10am-10pm Ca 180ml
12am-8am Alk 160ml
11pm-8am Mg 170ml

And as the OP said test every 3 days to make sure everything is bang on for first week, if it is test weekly then BI weekly and so forth.....

[jason604]

I normally just put in 1 cap of purple up whenever I remember to like once every week. What is the optimum cal and alk I should keep in order for best sps growth?

If you already keep params up by say dosing 4 cap fulls of purple up then you know roughly you use 20ml per week so you dose 20 ml spread over 7 days.

I dose anywhere from 180 to 200 ml per day of cal so I spread it out over 20x in a 12hr period, my alk and mg dosed at the same time frame but on the next 12 hr period.

So this is my dosing chart:
10am-10pm Ca 180ml
12am-8am Alk 160ml
11pm-8am Mg 170ml

And as the OP said test every 3 days to make sure everything is bang on for first week, if it is test weekly then BI weekly and so forth.....

[ashr]

Which seller did you use? I would like to get a back up motor as I have all ready went through my first one about a year ago. Has worked great ever since but it is good to have a back up.

[ashr]

Which seller did you use? I would like to get a back up motor as I have all ready went through my first one about a year ago. Has worked great ever since but it is good to have a back up.

Never mind, looks like I found it :)

[jason604]

Which seller did you use? I would like to get a back up motor as I have all ready went through my first one about a year ago. Has worked great ever since but it is good to have a back up.


http://www.marinemagic-online.com/about_us.html
Amazing customer service. He replies to all my emails right away.

[jason604]

guys im in need of some dosing help lol.. im trying to increase my alk thats currently at 7kh to 8kh. tested for 7kh then i used the recommended dose of the seachem reef builder kh additive of 250ml of RO with half a teaspoon of the additive. 1 hr later i tested water and it still showed 7kh on the salifert test kit.... same with CA mine was at 350 i wanna raise to 420 and used 1 cap full of purple up and it still shows 350... wtf is going on? Tried the BRS calculator but they dont use the same chems i do... i needa get my params to a stable desirable lvl b4 i can use my auto doser..

[Spyd]

If you are getting into SPS now, I highly suggest switching to a more balanced 2 part dosing system like BRS 2 part, Reef Supplies 2 part or B-Ionic. http://www.reefsupplies.ca/online-store/2-Part-Dosing/ Something along those lines. I don't know what the concentration is of the Purple Up or Seachem products.

You can safely increase Cal by 100 and ALK by 1 Dkh in the span of 24hrs. Don't try to do it in one shot though as it can potentially cause issues. Everytime you dose ALK, you will also increase your ph levels so it is best to dose ALK during lights off when ph is at its lowest point.

To figure out what your tank is using, you need to test once. Record your results and then test again at the same time the following day or 3 days even if you want more accurate results and then just divide by 3 and that is your daily consumption. Then use the BRS calculator and figure out how much you need to dose everyday. There will be a lot of testing for the first week or so and tweaks until you get it just right.

[jason604]

Gonna be picking up some soda ash and calcium
Chloride from KpG007 soon. Hope that will be better since purple up has to be shaken up real good before each use and that's not really practical for dosing. Still don't understand why adding the alk n cal didn't show a difference in yesterday's testing. Cal dropped 30pm by today. Is that normal?

[gregzz4]

What's your Mag reading ?

If it's low (below 1280 I think) you'll have issues trying to get the other 2 up

[jason604]

What's your Mag reading ?

If it's low (below 1280 I think) you'll have issues trying to get the other 2 up

Dunno I don't have a kit for it so I never added test or added mag since day one lol

[gregzz4]

Dunno I don't have a kit for it so I never added test or added mag since day one lol
Sounds like it's time for you to make a trip to J&L and get a Salifert Magnesium test kit :wink::smile:

[jason604]

Sounds like it's time for you to make a trip to J&L and get a Salifert Magnesium test kit :wink::smile:

i guess i should lol. Man one of my birdnest is now fully bleached but the birdnest next to it is perfectly fine. A couple more acros have some bleached tip and some have rtn on the tips tho... is it cuz im dosing 250ml of the alk a day? But my kh is still under 7

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

A cup of alk per day sounds like a lot to me (could be mistaken). How big is your system again?

[jason604]

A cup of alk per day sounds like a lot to me (could be mistaken). How big is your system again?

75. It's 250ml solution. Which is just half teaspoon of seachems reef builder alk

[gregzz4]

Maybe you're not dosing enough, but check your Mag before you get too carried away with the alk and ca levels

In my 110g total system I'm using 1tsp each of reef builder and advantage calcium daily (give or take), and I'm also dosing magnesium

[mrhasan]

What's your Mag reading ?

If it's low (below 1280 I think) you'll have issues trying to get the other 2 up

Below 1280 is considered low? :surprise:

[gregzz4]

Below 1280 is considered low? :surprise:
It is when you're having issues getting your Alk and Ca up

[mrhasan]

It is when you're having issues getting your Alk and Ca up

:neutral:

I keep my mg anywhere between 1170 to 1280 and I have never experienced that. I thought if it hits below 1000ppm then the imbalance starts. I remember Brads tank also have mg between 1100ppm to 1200ppm (or even lower? I cant remember the number he posted few weeks ago) and his tank definitely doesnt have any issue with ca and alk imbalance :wink: or maybe I am wrong :)

[gregzz4]

As I said, it's considered low when you're having issues getting alk and ca up :wink:

[jason604]

Went to by mg test kit today. My mg was at 1020!! Shieeet