Anyone not dosing? Just waterchanges?
 

Questions my new tank will is mostly rbta's and mushrooms. There are also a greens birdsnest , pokerstar monti, yellow tipped frogspawn and a war coral.
Wondering if anyone gets away with just doing weekly or bi weekly or monthly waterchanges for dosing alk, cal ,mag ?

Total system water after rock etc is around 20 gallons, so a 50% water change would be no problem. I guess the concern would be the swing in alk or cal hurting corals I still have. Slow growth on lps, sps isnt a concern. Worst comes to worst i will part with some of the sps,lps
i will have to test to see over the long term if water changes are enough just wondering if anyone does it.
Thanks

In the long run it does not work

a lot of people with nano/smaller tanks do. I have a 14 gallon and only rely on water changes. with such a small volume of water 50-100% water changes are a breeze.

I've known reefers who successfully grew LPS/softy corals well in tanks up to 75g just on regular water changes with no dosing. Nano reefs can do fine on regular water changes for sure. The only exception would be tanks with heavy sps loads.

I have a few client tanks that don't need dosing but they only have softies and maybe one or two LPS. Anything with SPS (especially birdnest and Monti caps which grow stupid fast ) amd more than a couple LPS need dosing. Also, some tanks grow crazy amounts of coralline which sucks up calcium and alkalinity like nobody's business. I find many Euphyllia coral, Acans and Blastis are sensitive to low alkalinity and get brown jelly disease - among others.

Worked well in my nano. But to pricey to do on a large tank

Tested mg, alk and cal yesturday. ill keep testing to see the drop. If i have to manually dose a bit between water changes no biggie. I just want to set up a simple low maintance nano. :biggrin:

I did this with my rock flower tank before I tied it into my main system alk and mag was always low.

I dont dose in my "FOWLR"....which has tonnes of easier corals in it from my old reef tank. Didnt have the heart to sell them. Just a 40 gallon water change every 2 weeks. Been going for about 6 months and everything has been just fine.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...pszohknsp0.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...psv7qtb93t.jpg

I find as long as theres no harder SPS, they can tolerate the alk swings between water changes.

My SPS system would show white burnt tips in a week or less if I didnt dose.

My experience.
 

When I first began keeping corals I started off with frags primarily and got away with doing water changes for nearly a year (never even tested the water once). Once the frags had grown and my collection had increased, it literally became impossible to keep them healthy without dosing on top of water changes. I have a 200 gallon tank/refugium and if I turn my doser off after a water change, the alk and calcium drop significantly just a day after.