Looking to auto dosing alk and calcium I am worried about dosing soda ash and crashing my tank! need help on this matter

[nano reef]

So I am getting a bit tired of hand dosing my 2 tanks and looking into dosing 2 part. I use Brs Soda ash and their calcium as well. I am petrified of to much being dosed at once and dont have a fortune to spend on an apex. I am a budget reefer lol. I just spent 3k on coarls that I dont wan to loose but also short of money for that reason.

I use Jaebo wave makers so thought of using one of their two parts but SCARY! How can I get around this without putting out to much cash?

Is their a inexpensive ph moniter or should I switch to sodium bicarb? I like the extra ph at night though because I dont have anyway to keep my ph up and usually around 7.8

Are their any dosers that are totally reliable and maybe more cost effective to buy one of them instead of a ph moniter or just keep dosing by hand. It it to much on corals to dose all at once? Right now only dosing about 25 mls alk and since I had a bunch of new corals come in and was low on calcium to begin with I am not real sure on the dose yet. I keep testing daily trying to hit the sweet spot! Plus they screwed up my order and sent about 12 wrong corals I will be getting in about 15 to 20 more.

Anyone in Tampa area want a bunch of cheap corals! LOL I dont want them and my LFS wont take them!

 

[TCK Corals]

Soda ash, calcium and a balanced way to maintain other elements and trace elements is a perfect way to do this. Auto dosing it in smaller increments several times over the course of the day will help with any spikes associated with dosing it in a single larger hand dose.

You’ll definitely want to invest in a solid auto doser with good reviews, and set it up in a way to prevent siphoning if the dosing pump loses it’s prime. Also in an area protected from splashes. We’ve had a dosing head get wet with tank water and it got stuck in the on position.

while you decide on a doser and what type of 2,3,4 part you will use, now is a perfect time to figure out how much alkalinity your tank consumes in 24 hours. You’ll need that to set everything up. It’s different for every tank, and as your corals grow and system matures, demand for alk will increase.

 

[TCK Corals]

Side note, to monitor things, a ph probe and or an alkalinity auto tester would give insights, but imo a hand check with salifert or hanna checker takes very little time and is very consistent and well worth the few seconds.

 

[ryanjohn1]

Curious how big a tank you just bombed full of that many frags?

 

[nano reef]

Soda ash, calcium and a balanced way to maintain other elements and trace elements is a perfect way to do this. Auto dosing it in smaller increments several times over the course of the day will help with any spikes associated with dosing it in a single larger hand dose.

You’ll definitely want to invest in a solid auto doser with good reviews, and set it up in a way to prevent siphoning if the dosing pump loses it’s prime. Also in an area protected from splashes. We’ve had a dosing head get wet with tank water and it got stuck in the on position.

while you decide on a doser and what type of 2,3,4 part you will use, now is a perfect time to figure out how much alkalinity your tank consumes in 24 hours. You’ll need that to set everything up. It’s different for every tank, and as your corals grow and system matures, demand for alk will increase.

Oh my tank is mature, Its almost 5 years old. I have been dosing a while now. Its just that this huge order of a bunch of wrong frags have thrown it off what I was dosing b4.

I sure as hell wish hubby was in the hobby! lol. Its hard being 62 year old woman's and trying to hook up gear and all that so thats why I have been hand dosing. What sucks is spreadng it out through the day means I have to stay home and tank sit! lol. Thats what I have been doing since all this corals came in!. I test throughout the day as well. I have hanna checker alk and red sea calcium, saliert mag but I need something that will notify me if its over dosed. Isnt there something like that and wont cost a fortune?

Do you know of a good doser? I have no idea how to set it up so it dosnt lose it syphon! Is that what would make it not turn off and possibly crash your tank, besides it getting splashed!

One other thing. I do about 30 percent wwc every two weeks. Is icp often the only way to know what essential elements need dosing? A coral vendor was telling me about a differt type of dosing and cant remember what the name was but I remember reading about it at the time and it said it helps maintain alkalinty instead of adding soda ash! I am also think of bicarb instead in case it does get stuck on! I just cant keep staying home and dosing all day lol Not to mention vacations!

 

[disaster999]

In my experience, a dosing pump is pretty much the safest way of dosing 2 part to your tank. I have used all sorts of cheap dosing pumps like Jebao, SiMaLai, and now Kamoer and so far all of them never overdosed my tank. There are some issues like the shaft slipping on the rollers, but thats the only thing wrong with the Jebao unit.

The Kamoer I have now is wifi control and you can easily set the total amount you want to add each day and how many times to add it in a day. You can off set the dosing time from one another as well so you wont be dosing both calc and alk at the same time precipitating it out of solution. You can also set the total volume the contain has and it will give an estimate how long your solution lasts and give you a warning if it ran out.

 

[nano reef]

In my experience, a dosing pump is pretty much the safest way of dosing 2 part to your tank. I have used all sorts of cheap dosing pumps like Jebao, SiMaLai, and now Kamoer and so far all of them never overdosed my tank. There are some issues like the shaft slipping on the rollers, but thats the only thing wrong with the Jebao unit.

The Kamoer I have now is wifi control and you can easily set the total amount you want to add each day and how many times to add it in a day. You can off set the dosing time from one another as well so you wont be dosing both calc and alk at the same time precipitating it out of solution. You can also set the total volume the contain has and it will give an estimate how long your solution lasts and give you a warning if it ran out.

They should have it give you a warning if it gets stuck in the on position. Funny thing is Bulk reef supply is all about redundancy and they never mention that once on any any two part dosing video's but they do on dosing Kalkwasser. They saw you should have a ph probe.

I guess its not very common that happens. I am just a worry wart lol

Why have you had so many dosers? Are the cheap ones not dependable or are they just on multiple tanks?

Do you remember the model number on any of them?

Oh, and what happens if the shaft slips on the rollers and are they hard to set up? I still have set up my ato I got for Xmas! lol

Appreciate the advice

 

[GlassMunky]

So I am getting a bit tired of hand dosing my 2 tanks and looking into dosing 2 part. I use Brs Soda ash and their calcium as well. I am petrified of to much being dosed at once and dont have a fortune to spend on an apex. I am a budget reefer lol. I just spent 3k on coarls that I dont wan to loose but also short of money for that reason.

I use Jaebo wave makers so thought of using one of their two parts but SCARY! How can I get around this without putting out to much cash?

Is their a inexpensive ph moniter or should I switch to sodium bicarb? I like the extra ph at night though because I dont have anyway to keep my ph up and usually around 7.8

Are their any dosers that are totally reliable and maybe more cost effective to buy one of them instead of a ph moniter or just keep dosing by hand. It it to much on corals to dose all at once? Right now only dosing about 25 mls alk and since I had a bunch of new corals come in and was low on calcium to begin with I am not real sure on the dose yet. I keep testing daily trying to hit the sweet spot! Plus they screwed up my order and sent about 12 wrong corals I will be getting in about 15 to 20 more.

Anyone in Tampa area want a bunch of cheap corals! LOL I dont want them and my LFS wont take them!

spends 3k on corals but says he cant spend a couple hundred on dosing to make the tank stable.... makes sense lol

 

[GlassMunky]

Do you know of a good doser? I have no idea how to set it up so it dosnt lose it syphon! Is that what would make it not turn off and possibly crash your tank, besides it getting splashed!

Dosing pumps dont work off of a siphon. Its the same thing as an IV drip where rollers move the liquid through the lines. It cant loose the water. The main reason dosers fail is electronic issues like programming failure or just straight up the whole dying like any electronic.

DEF good to have some kind of PH monitor so that if it starts overdosing and your ph gets high you get a warning.

 

[Reefering1]

Curious how big a tank you just bombed full of that many frags?

spends 3k on corals but says he cant spend a couple hundred on dosing to make the tank stable.... makes sense lol

Now a days, that 3000$ on corals could easily be 5 or 6- 1" cuts

 

[GlassMunky]

Now a days, that 3000$ on corals could easily be 5 or 6- 1" cuts

still does not negate the fact of what i said.... if you have money to spend $3k on corals, you have a couple hundred to spend on the equipment to keep it alive

 

[Reefering1]

I use a dosetronic. I trust it with my tank dosing 4 parts and vodka

 

[Reefering1]

still does not negate the fact of what i said.... if you have money to spend $3k on corals, you have a couple hundred to spend on the equipment to keep it alive

Completely agree

 

[n2585722]

Hydros just came out with the Minnow that has 2 dosing pumps built into it and 4 sense ports. The sense ports are for most of the sensors that connect with the Hydros with the exception of probes such as pH, ORP and salinity. You can connect temp sensors, water level sensors, leak detectors, flow sensors to name a few. It is considered a controller since I can run standalone or can be used in a collective with other Hydros controllers. You could get one if you just need 2 dosing pumps and if you decide later to get into more automation you can get a Hydros controller with the input and output ports needed, a command bus cable and a couple of terminators. Create a collective in the app using your Minnow. After the changes are uploaded power things down and connect the two controllers using the command bus cable and add the terminators to the unused command bus ports if the controller added has a power source other than the type that connects to a command bus port. Each controller has two command bus ports. If the new controller does have a power source remove the power supply that comes with the minnow. The power supplies that connect directly to the command bus cannot be used with any other source of power on the command bus, but those are the only ones that are like that. Then you would power things back up and in the app select the new controller and check the firmware and make sure it is the same as what is on your original controller before adding it to the collective. Once it has the correct firmware then select the collective and add it to the collective and upload the changes. Now the collective will act like on large controller with all inputs and output of the member controllers. Also if you have the needed inputs such as pH and alkalinity you can also do dynamic dosing where it will vary the dose depending on the readings from the input used for control. I use alkalinity for dynamic dosing of a KH buffers and also All For Reef but I have a X10 in my collective and a iV for testing alkalinity. Also the X10 has 4 dosing pumps but you need three dosing pumps for alkalinity testing but a simple doser can be used on one of the 2 drive ports on the X10. So that would leave 2 dosing pumps for dosing but that would be a lot more expensive that just the minnow.

 

[disaster999]

They should have it give you a warning if it gets stuck in the on position. Funny thing is Bulk reef supply is all about redundancy and they never mention that once on any any two part dosing video's but they do on dosing Kalkwasser. They saw you should have a ph probe.

I guess its not very common that happens. I am just a worry wart lol

Why have you had so many dosers? Are the cheap ones not dependable or are they just on multiple tanks?

Do you remember the model number on any of them?

Oh, and what happens if the shaft slips on the rollers and are they hard to set up? I still have set up my ato I got for Xmas! lol

Appreciate the advice

Just used several over the years, the Jebao one I had a LONG time ago when they are just started to make a name for themselves in inexpensive aquarium products. The control was on the box and it was VERY difficult to make any adjustments and just overall not very ergonomic so decided to ditch it

The SiMaLai I just cheaped out thinking I could buy 3 individual ones. Although they worked, the interface wasnt exactly the best. I probably would of kept using it If my tank didnt spring a leak after 10+ years of service and I just threw everything out and started fresh.

I settled with the Kamoer, did my research, read a lot of reviews. True wifi and internet connection, accurate, easy to use app and controls, and most importantly of all, cheap. I was going the simple route and dosing kalk only to my tank so I didnt need 3 or 4 dosing heads. The one Im using now is the Kamoer X1 Pro 2. You can buy multiple units and daisy chain them with only 1 power supply. They can all be controlled with 1 app too.

Whenever the shaft slips, its either due to it being dirty, a clog in the line, or worn rollers. Most of the more popular dosing pump brands have replacement heads for you to swap.

 

[ReefStable]

I see quite a few posts that are getting either aggressive or sarcastic, so just to reset some things, I'll throw my $0.02 in here.

Now that you have a large amount of coral, it would make sense to start saving toward a controller. A cheaper dosing pump may work, but they tend to either get stuck on or off after a while.

I would encourage looking into either an Apex or a Hydros.

The Apex is about $630 for the base unit and the DOS is $350, so just shy of $1000.

The Hydros Minow has 2 dosing pumps for $250, or the Control XD or Control X2 both have at least 2 drive ports, and you could get 2 dosing pumps for $75 each. So you're at about $350 total but then maintenance is easier. Personally, I think that's the way I would go.

Both of these allow expanding later and you can get pH Monitoring with the Apex (built in) or add on a Hydros module with a probe port later.

The Trident can do water testing for Alk/Cal/Mag and the Maven for Hydros is expected at the end of the year.

Comparing the 2, honestly, I like how modular the Hydros is. I.e. you can get dosing and simple control for $350 rather than $1000. But the Apex kit comes with power controls etc so it's really a pick your poison scenario.

Hope this helps