What do you dose in your reef?

[k3nnyp]

Recently I got an ICP and had a few low parameters. I've never consistently dosed anything other than 2 part and am considering dosing some minor trace elements. What do you dose your tanks with and why? I'm really bad at manual consistency over time so my intent is to automate with dosing pumps. I'm also interested in coral food. I feel like I have descent growth and color but doesn't everyone want more?

It's a mixed reef with SPS and LPS.

I recently changed from Liveaquaria Salt back to Red Sea Coral Pro and likely need a few tests to see a long term trend.

Here are my low parameters

Iodine: 0.0035 ppm
Iron: 0 ppm
Strontium: 2.2604 ppm
Sulfur: 686.9837 ppm

 

[k3nnyp]

Additionally,
Display is 220g with probably 20-30g in my sump.
I do auto water changes of 2g per day.
I dose around 200ml of BRS 2 part daily. This seems excessive to me. Maybe it's precipitating out but I don't see any signs of that happening. I have corals but IMO it's still sparsely populated for the aquarium size, definitely not overloaded. More LPS than SPS.

How much 2 part are you using?

 

[k3nnyp]

This might be the reason for my low iodine. I hate trimming these guys back because I'm too lazy to sell/trade/give away the frags and couldn't possibly flush them I have a few of them that have escaped Alcatraz so maybe I should part with the entire rock but it's the back drop to an arch that I like in the display.

 

[Adam]

This is a great question but one not easily answered. Can you post a full tank shot and do you double check your salinity when mixing water?
200ml of 2part does sound a bit high to me as well but if you have decent sized sps colonies it may not be. So I don't want to make any assumptions without a better understanding of the coral biomass.

Another thing this illustrates is how two similar systems using the same salt can be quite different. My display was a 220 but I also had a bigger sump and a 60 frag tank plumbed in. Total water volume was estimated at 325 gallons and I kept the salinity at 1.025 or 33.5ppt. For the last 6 to 8 months before I took down the system I might have done 2 or 3 water changes. I was running a calcium reactor and dosing several products, mostly Brightwell products. Ferrion weekly because the ATS was producing very well and sucking it up. Then I alternated every other day, skipping Sunday, between Replenish & KoralColor. These were dosed at half the recommended rate. Twice a week I would add 5 drops of Lugal's. That's about it. I did have other products on hand but hardly ever had to use them.

I backed this method up with quarterly ICP tests. Again no two systems are the same. Stocking is different as is feeding along with a plethora of other things. Here is my last ICP test for reference.
//lab.atiaquaristik.com/share/6776933ff6a489d3483e

 

[silentdeath5]

+1 for ferrion. I couldn’t get any macro algae’s to grow until I started dosing it

 

[morganatlanta]

I use ATI Essentials two part, which has trace elements included, as well as Acropower and Vibrant, all through a Jaebao 4 head doser. Once a week I dose 20ml of Chaetogro, and I do 4 gallons/day automated water change on a 120 gallon system. I have a Neptune Trident that tests Alk/Calc/Mag 4 times a day, and I use trends in those measurements to tweak the 2 part dosing.

I haven't done an ICP test in a long time. Previous tests seemed to have odd variances in individual elements, both high and low, that couldn't really be explained and seemed to go away from test to test with no action on may part. Instead of chasing individual numbers, I decided to just dose a product that included trace elements at the supposedly correct ratios, and combine that with water changes, which should keep anything from getting totally out of whack. I'm sure I'm wasting money on elements and salt, but probably not much more than monthly ICP tests would cost, and I don't have the stress of constantly chasing a dozen different numbers.

I wouldn't claim roaring success (yet) though, so take that with a grain (or bucket) of salt.

 

[k3nnyp]

I've always struggled with GOOD photos but here is a Panoramic. The fish are probably wondering why the sun popped out for 2 minutes and went back down. There is a softball sized sps on the back side you can't see here. I've certainly seen a lot more dense tanks. The coraline on both end caps probably consumes a good bit I had the right side clean for a while but I'd rather see the coraline from the DT side than the bedroom door. It also hides some wires.

I've had a few mishaps over the past few years and I'm trying to build my collection up. 1st was the great tank leak of 2017. Recently I lost some corals due to not paying close attention to my parameters ( or tank ) and now have a Triton. I'm determined to maintain better parameters and automate as much as possible to avoid stupid mistakes.

I do double check my water change water with a Milwaukee digitial refractometer but have mixed it high in the past. I'm striving to keep it at 35 going forward. I recently checked the Milwaukee and it was spot on. I also added a new salinity probe to my Apex and it now matches. My old one was off and probably just needed recalibration but I replaced it. My tank salinity is at 36 and I'm working on slowly lowering it down to 35 by taking out an additional 1/2g/day during my water changes.

I plan on doing more frequent ICP tests, especially if I start dosing things I can't easily test accurately.

 

[k3nnyp]

I use ATI Essentials two part, which has trace elements included, as well as Acropower and Vibrant, all through a Jaebao 4 head doser.

Beware. I was dosing 2 part with a Jebao 4 head doser when I got an alert from my apex that my ph was through the rough. I rushed home from work to realize the Kh dosing pump was stuck in the ON position and dumped 1/2 a jug into my aquarium. I picked up some soda water from my local Kroger to get it back down. Later investigating the dosing pump no mater what I did I could not get it to turn that pump off. It didn't get wet from what I could tell. I didn't take it apart to see if somehow some salt creep got inside it somehow but the outside was clean. I trashed it and replaced the tubes in my old BRS dosers that were sitting in my basement.

 

[k3nnyp]

Thanks for the advice, and keep it coming. I'm also considering bumping my water change volume. Currently I have a 30g container for Salt Mix and need to increase that before I increase the volume. I don't want to commit to mixing water more than once every two weeks because I know I will slip.

 

[Adam]

Based on what I see in the FTS the 200ml/day is high. If you see no signs of precipitate on heaters, pumps or UV if you run one. Try poking around in the sand and Ed to see if it's blocking up.

Can you post your last icp results?

 

[k3nnyp]

I don't often make the best decisions regarding the money I spend on my tank but can't help but compare ATI Essentials 2 part to BRS 2 part. I'd need to determine the cost of adding dosing pumps and trace elements for a good comparison but here are some raw numbers.

BRS = $12.80/g = $0.68/day
ATI Essentials = $75/g = $3.96/day

 

[k3nnyp]

Here are the ICP results from water I took on 1/30

 

[morganatlanta]

ATI Essentials is pretty concentrated. I used more like 20ml/day than 200ml, so the daily cost is more like $0.40, not $4.00.

 

[Adam]

Here are the ICP results from water I took on 1/30

What is your Alk at? With 200ml a day and Cal under 400 it's got to be going somewhere. If you were precipitating I'd expect the Cal to be climbing. Your Mag isn't bad, I just like to run mine a little higher.

 

[Adam]

Also, with my new system I plan to dose kalk. It will be metered from a dosing pump, not in the ATO. Then a ways down the road when kalk can't keep up I'll fire up the calcium reactor to fill the gap.

 

[k3nnyp]

A week ago I changed my 2 part so that they were equal volumes, they were a bit out of whack. I have to admit I haven't felt like I've been able to reach consistent levels. I blame myself for that. I've always seemed to struggle to keep my Alk up. If I want a CA of 425 what should I expect my ALK to be? My heaters had some precipitation on them but nothing I thought was abnormal. I cleaned them a month ago, for the first time in forever, and they haven't accumulated any since. They are the cobalt black heaters so it would show up easily.

 

[NanCrab]

I use ATI Essentials two part, which has trace elements included, as well as Acropower and Vibrant, all through a Jaebao 4 head doser. Once a week I dose 20ml of Chaetogro, and I do 4 gallons/day automated water change on a 120 gallon system. I have a Neptune Trident that tests Alk/Calc/Mag 4 times a day, and I use trends in those measurements to tweak the 2 part dosing.

I haven't done an ICP test in a long time. Previous tests seemed to have odd variances in individual elements, both high and low, that couldn't really be explained and seemed to go away from test to test with no action on may part. Instead of chasing individual numbers, I decided to just dose a product that included trace elements at the supposedly correct ratios, and combine that with water changes, which should keep anything from getting totally out of whack. I'm sure I'm wasting money on elements and salt, but probably not much more than monthly ICP tests would cost, and I don't have the stress of constantly chasing a dozen different numbers.

I wouldn't claim roaring success (yet) though, so take that with a grain (or bucket) of salt.

We also use ATI 2 part and in just a few months the results have been nothing short of phenomenal. We have a 125 DT but with rocks and equipment our working volume is around 90 gallons. I have them on a Jebao dozer and I only dose 1 ml of each part hourly (each part goes in on opposite hours so part 1 1ml on odd hours and part 2 1 ml on even hours)
My parameters are surprisingly stable.
Hope this helps!

 

[k3nnyp]

If folks are having success with ATI 2 part maybe I'll consider switching over. Start with a couple sizable water changes.

 

[ichthyoid]

All For Reef,,the original all in one.
Buy the diy kit, blend it yourself & save half off of the preblended version.

Fwiw- All in one’s work best if you get your alk set before switching over to them.

Tropic Marin DIY All-For-Reef Kit

Bulk Reef Supply - Saltwater Aquarium Supplies for Reef Tanks

www.bulkreefsupply.com

 

[k3nnyp]

Dosing a stable One part sounds better than Two part. @ichthyoid Can I assume you have had good success with this?