Dialing in your dosing...

[Daniel@R2R]

Haven't seen a thread on this in a while, and it's a pretty important topic for new reefers.

How do you dial in your dosing? Can you give step by step instructions for new reefers on how to do this?

What are the levels you check when starting a reef? How often?

What do you dose? Would you recommend AFR or 2-part or...?

What advice do you give to those just getting started with this?

 

[Crabs McJones]

When I dosed. Used BRS 2 part.
Took a baseline reading of alk, calcium and magnesium. Got the levels where I wanted them, and then 24 hours later took another measurement to calculate loss. Did the math to calculate what dose the tank would need to get levels back up to where I wanted them. Did this for about a week and got my average dosing. Dialed in the APEX dos unit, and levels stayed pretty stable from there. Tested about once a week to make sure they were staying where they needed to and adjusted as needed.

 

[Evil1]

After my reef was seasoned (about 2 years) and well stocked with softies, LPS, SPS (including Acros, I kept my parameters where I wanted them (all corals happy) dosing the core 3 separately. Few years back with everything stable I switched to AFR and never looked back. Dosing 25 ml daily ( at this point) spread out within a 12 hour period. For my reef it worked out perfectly. Key to using AFR is a stable tank and having Alk & Cal where you want them prior to starting AFR.

 

[SpyC]

When I used brs 2 part, I tested alk, cal, and mag then retested after a week. I subtracted the difference from the first readings and then divided by 7. I wanted a longer timeframe to use to calculate avg usage.
For AFR, I am still trying to dial it in. This seems more like trial and error u til you get consistent daily reading.

 

[Troylee]

It’s all about testing! My best advice to any newb is get a trident if you can afford one! Althou it’s not perfect it’s easy to follow trends on it and makes life simple! If not you gotta be really vigilant in testing daily to get the exact dose

 

[lil sumpin]

As a noob, it took me some months of consistently testing to figure this out. And all the while I was still adding some softies and LPS to my nano so whatever consumption I was able to observe would often increase. I have since stopped testing daily, it became part of my morning routine, wake up brush up make coffee test alkalinity. I aim to stay around 8dKh and use ESV to bump and boost 1-2 times a week while using 3ml AFR daily. On WC days I’ll check alk as well as cal and also run a hanna test to see the result against salifert. There is often a little bit of difference but it’s nothing crazy.

 

[TokenReefer]

I (try to) test at roughly the same time for a number of days (same tests and methods) until I see the pattern