Dosing pump help

johnyboy

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Hey reefers

I just finally got a dosing pump and was wondering exactly how I should program it. Should I dose all my alk first through like 6 hours and then all the calcium the next 6? Or should I be dosing both alk , calcium , alk , calcium at 30 min intervals through the day? I have a 75 gallon and dose by hand about 20 ml of alk and 20 ml of calcium so try and help me make a schedule if you can of what I should program in the pump. I hope you understand what I mean by that lol thanks for the help!
 

G8trBait16

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I have a 75g also, but I am on the Aquaforest system and dose 3 components. I have a bubble magus doser, what I have mine set to is for component 1+ (CA and MG) start at noon and dose 8 times through the day for a total of 30ml. Component 2+ (Alk), starts at 12:05am, but doses 24 times (every :05 of the hour) also for a total of 30ML, Component 3+ (Mineral Salt/Trace elements) starts at 12:10pm doses 8 times though the day for a total of 30ml. I like to keep my alk a lot more constant, which is the reason I dose once an hour. I am also keeping 90% SPS corals.
 
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johnyboy

johnyboy

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I have a 75g also, but I am on the Aquaforest system and dose 3 components. I have a bubble magus doser, what I have mine set to is for component 1+ (CA and MG) start at noon and dose 8 times through the day for a total of 30ml. Component 2+ (Alk), starts at 12:05am, but doses 24 times (every :05 of the hour) also for a total of 30ML, Component 3+ (Mineral Salt/Trace elements) starts at 12:10pm doses 8 times though the day for a total of 30ml. I like to keep my alk a lot more constant, which is the reason I dose once an hour. I am also keeping 90% SPS corals.

So your supposed to dose the alk at night ? So you dose all your calcium and then at night you dose all your alk?
 

G8trBait16

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My alk gets dosed @ 5 minutes after ever hour (12:05am, 1:05am, 2:05am and so on for 24 hours). I just dose the CA, MG and mineral salts during the day (no particular reason).
 
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johnyboy

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My alk gets dosed @ 5 minutes after ever hour (12:05am, 1:05am, 2:05am and so on for 24 hours). I just dose the CA, MG and mineral salts during the day (no particular reason).

Ok so how bout this. I need to dose 15 alk and 15 calcium. How would you set up the dosing schedule? I'm sorry I'm jus a little confused and want to do it the right way because if not it can be dangerous lol
 

Ewilson

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I also dose 15ml of each, 7ml of cal at 9pm and 8ml at 3 am and 7ml alk at 9:30pm and 8ml at 3:30am
 
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johnyboy

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So I should have the pumps set for nighttime dosing ? Is that better? I'm thinking 2 ml of alk every hour on the hour until I reach 16 ml and every half hour I dose 2 ml of calcium. So for example 2ml 9:00 pm of alk then 2 ml of calcium at 930pm so on and so forth?
 

Whipples

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if your tank isn't aggressively consuming the components, i think you can do two to three times per day without ill effect. the higher the consumption the more constant you would want your dosing. I only need about 12ml of their alk component at the moment so i have it dosed twice a day, once in the morning before lights come on and once again at night when lights go off. I can't remember if it was a Randy Holmes-Farley thread or not, but I believe the calcification process occurs mostly at night, not during the day, so making sure you dose at around lights out or sometime in the evening to get levels back up would be ideal for their growth process.
 
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johnyboy

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if your tank isn't aggressively consuming the components, i think you can do two to three times per day without ill effect. the higher the consumption the more constant you would want your dosing. I only need about 12ml of their alk component at the moment so i have it dosed twice a day, once in the morning before lights come on and once again at night when lights go off. I can't remember if it was a Randy Holmes-Farley thread or not, but I believe the calcification process occurs mostly at night, not during the day, so making sure you dose at around lights out or sometime in the evening to get levels back up would be ideal for their growth process.

My alk is low and trying to bring it up slowly and keep my dosing more constant than doing it by hand. So I'm trying to figure out a good schedule for the pump. I need 15 Ml of alk and calcium per day. Can you make a schedule for me that you think would be good for me to set on the pump?
 

Whipples

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15ml to maintain levels and match consumption, or 15ml to slowly bring the tank up to where you want? I use a Profilux doser which functionally is the same, so if I were trying to do a "maintain levels" dose for alkalinity I would do 3-4 times per day, so 3 5ml intervals. i would then space the other components to dose an hour after, but in the same intervals.

for example: alkalinity would dose at 8am, 4pm, and 12am if i were dosing it three times, giving you a nice boost going into the evening where calcification happens and also to prevent drastic pH drops. then you can set the next component to dose at 9am, 5pm, and 1am. component 3 can go at 10am, 6pm, and 2am. this would prevent you from dosing any one component too soon and precipitate out, but also helping to keep levels near constant and provide nutrients during the daily cycle.
 
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johnyboy

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15ml to maintain levels and match consumption, or 15ml to slowly bring the tank up to where you want? I use a Profilux doser which functionally is the same, so if I were trying to do a "maintain levels" dose for alkalinity I would do 3-4 times per day, so 3 5ml intervals. i would then space the other components to dose an hour after, but in the same intervals.

for example: alkalinity would dose at 8am, 4pm, and 12am if i were dosing it three times, giving you a nice boost going into the evening where calcification happens and also to prevent drastic pH drops. then you can set the next component to dose at 9am, 5pm, and 1am. component 3 can go at 10am, 6pm, and 2am. this would prevent you from dosing any one component too soon and precipitate out, but also helping to keep levels near constant and provide nutrients during the daily cycle.

I need to raise my alk a little bit. Does this change anything above? I'm thinking of dosing alk 6pm 9pm 12am and dosing calcium 7pm 10 pm and 1 am would this work? Or should I spread it out more
 

Whipples

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That would work. If you need to raise alk, i would manually dose it periodically in addition to your schedule so it comes up over time. That is what I did to get mine where I wanted it, and then I tested at the same time every day for a few days to make sure the dose I had was keeping it there.
 
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johnyboy

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That would work. If you need to raise alk, i would manually dose it periodically in addition to your schedule so it comes up over time. That is what I did to get mine where I wanted it, and then I tested at the same time every day for a few days to make sure the dose I had was keeping it there.

I just set my pump up. I'm dosing

Alk- 8 pm 10pm and 12 am 5ml each
Calcium - 830 pm 1030pm and 1230 am 5 ml each

I'm starting with low ml to see how my tank responds but Is this ok? Or should I spread it out more for stability?
 

Whipples

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I would spread it out a bit more so you are keeping it more at a constant level of alkalinity versus concentrating it in one time period. since you are dosing 3 times, spread them over 8am, 4pm, and midnight. :)
 
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johnyboy

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I would spread it out a bit more so you are keeping it more at a constant level of alkalinity versus concentrating it in one time period. since you are dosing 3 times, spread them over 8am, 4pm, and midnight. :)

Sorry For being a pain I just love my tank any want to be prepared before I just hook this thing up. I'm dosing 4 times alk and 4 times calcium so your saying dose 5ml at 8 am then 5ml at 12pm then 5ml at 5pm then 5ml at 8 pm? Is that better
 

Whipples

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no problem! you mentioned that your tank is currently only consuming 15ml of each component, so why dose 20ml in the new schedule? a simple enough dosing schedule is 5ml, 3 times per day, 8 hours apart. then separate component 1, 2, and 3 by an hour so you have one dosing schedule that looks like this:

Component 1 5ml @ 8am, 4pm, 12am
Component 2 5ml @ 9am, 5pm, 1am
Component 3 5ml @ 10am, 6pm, 2am

Make sure you calibrate your doser so that what it says it is dosing measures up to the output at the distance and height of your tubing. there are youtube videos that can help with this, too, as it is lengthy to explain in text :)
 
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johnyboy

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I'm trying to increase my alkalinity that's why I went with 20 ml because I'm dosing 15 now and it's stable but just staying low
 

Whipples

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You can do that, just don't dose the other components at 20ml and only 15ml until you get alkalinity where you want, then reduce the alk down to a dose that will keep the tank stable.
 
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johnyboy

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no problem! you mentioned that your tank is currently only consuming 15ml of each component, so why dose 20ml in the new schedule? a simple enough dosing schedule is 5ml, 3 times per day, 8 hours apart. then separate component 1, 2, and 3 by an hour so you have one dosing schedule that looks like this:

Component 1 5ml @ 8am, 4pm, 12am
Component 2 5ml @ 9am, 5pm, 1am
Component 3 5ml @ 10am, 6pm, 2am

Make sure you calibrate your doser so that what it says it is dosing measures up to the output at the distance and height of your tubing. there are youtube videos that can help with this, too, as it is lengthy to explain in text :)

I'm going to try this schedule for sure when I hook it up tomorrow. The only thing is that I'm wondering if it's better to do this schedule at night or during the day because I know levels fluctuate day and night
 

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