brs dosing instructions

[Baldy]

hello,

my tank ATM is low demand on dosing. I have a few corals, and all are softies so far. Regular water changes have been enough to maintain calcium and mag levels, bit not alkalinity.

I ordered a half gallon of soda ash from brs to begin dosing for alk as I'm going through a fair bit of reef fusion and want to spread it out a bit more. The thing is, everything I read says to dose equal parts of calc and alk. I i do this, I'll end up with quite high levels of calcium.

Is it ok to use the alk part only of recipe 1 2 part dose?

[mark]

No problem dosing different amounts of each part to match your tanks need.

[eli@fijireefrock.com]

No problem dosing different amounts of each part to match your tanks need.

1+
As you need to get into a regime between adding the chemical and water changes.make sure you have a decent test kit and take your time.:biggrin:

[daniella3d]

YOu don't need to dose calcium if your calcium level is fine, only dose what you need to dose, nothing more, nothing else.

I suggest splitting the dose as it is better to dose a smaller amount twice a day than a bigger amount once a day. I use a dosing pump Marine Magic from ebay (140$) and dose small amount 16 times per day...it does wonder for the stability of my tank and my zoanthids :)

[lastlight]

Doug (fishytime) also pioneered the coffee cup doser method if you're not wanting to spend the money right now. pop a small hole in the cup and let it bleed out into your sump or display. Might be a problem if we're only talking a few mL a day tho as it might just sit in the bottom of the cup.

When my demands were low I used my test kit syringes and did a morning and evening dose.

[Baldy]

I plan on setting a milk jug on a shelf and using an air tube with a resrictor into the sump. I'm hoping I can get it slow enough to run all day, at least till I can get a brs dosing pump or something similar

I asked because I read somewhere about maintaining ionic balance (I think) with 2 part dosing. I'm at work ATM and can't check if that's exactly what it was called.

Good to know that I can dose only all though. Thanks guys!

[beefORchicken]

if you are looking for an inexpensive way to dose you can use an aqua lifter on a timer with air line tubing and a milk jug. i have been using milk jugs and aqua lifters for a while now with no problems. just set the timer (it has to have a 1 minute resolution or less) for the desired amount of doses (ex 5 1min doses over 24hrs) and do some test runs to figure out how much would be dosed.

[Baldy]

I'm going to use an aqualifter for my auto topoff right away, but for dosing, I think I will buy dosing pumps for. takes the guesswork out of amounts for a period of time

[daniella3d]

There is still some guesswork to be done like a good evaluation of the real consumption of the tank and there are little adjustments to be made over the first few weeks but once it is set up it is very stable! I love my dosing pump and the price was reasonable. I was pretty tired of dosing morning and evening and missing doses and making my system unstable.

I'm going to use an aqualifter for my auto topoff right away, but for dosing, I think I will buy dosing pumps for. takes the guesswork out of amounts for a period of time

[Reef Pilot]

if you are looking for an inexpensive way to dose you can use an aqua lifter on a timer with air line tubing and a milk jug. i have been using milk jugs and aqua lifters for a while now with no problems. just set the timer (it has to have a 1 minute resolution or less) for the desired amount of doses (ex 5 1min doses over 24hrs) and do some test runs to figure out how much would be dosed.
If you want an even cheaper dosing system, use an old air pump. I set up a milk jug with two holes for the airline tubing in the lid. One was from the air pump which pressurized the milk jug, and the other was your drip line with an adjustable valve (an old air valve). I had the air pump run on a timer over night to dose the amount I wanted.

The only problem is that it was not totally accurate and consistent (drip rate would vary with amount of liquid consumed in the jug, and perhaps even daily atmospheric pressure changes). But after a lot of playing around and adjustment, I got it pretty close to what I wanted.

However, in the end, bit the bullet and bought another dosing pump, so I don't use this method anymore. I needed more precise dosing control, without all the adjustments, for what I was doing.