Considering dosing, how many pumps and what to dose?

[Oscarmk]

I am considering dosing my aquarium to support coral growth and also to get more corals. I have GHL Profilux 4, and thinking of getting a GHL Doser 2.1 slave with either 3 or 4 pumps - depending on what I have to dose. Unfortunately automatic water changes are out of the question, since I don't have space to nicely store it. I know people dose "2 part" and kalkwasser, and some even dose iodine etc. My tank right now has few corals, and it is a mixed reef, I have some zoas, mushrooms, hammers, candy canes, frogspawns and a few sps, and I am interested in getting more frogspawns, favias, acans and a few more SPS, probably just more birdsnest or something easy.As I understand this would likely be too much for me to continue supporting on just weekly water changes, plus I am well aware automatic dosing promotes growth by keeping parameters perfectly stable, which is why I have decided to buy the doser. With this in mind the question is what do I dose?, and would I need 3 or 4 pumps?, they even sell one with 2 pumps, but sounds like a bad purchase. Any input, suggestions more than welcome, as I am completely new to dosing. Additionally any sensors that I should have that would alert me in the event a doser malfuncioned would be awesome!, all I have right now is a temp probe, I am buying the Ph probe, would the redox, conductivity or oxygen sensor help configure some alarms for possible doser malfunction?. Also if anyone has experience using the GHL Doser 2 or 2.1, I would like to hear how you like it. From what I've read online they are very quiet, precise and reliable.

 

[LunaticFringe]

FWIW...to you, coming from me...The only thing I have dosed on a regular basis is Kalkwasser.  I use a half gallon Reptile Dripper to dose that at night to make up for all the water that has evaporated.  Its a low tech but really idiot proof system.  I have been known to add a little Magnesium, Stronium to my Saltwater for water changes.  I normally keep a 30-40 gallon trash can full of, available for use in scheduled water changes or emergency water changes if needed should something go south in my tanks.  This routine has served me very well over the years even when I had a 240 gallon SPS tank that was up there in scope to Mike Paletta's 300 gallon home display!  Could I have achieved better results if the technology we have today was available to me back then in 2002?  Probably.  Was it "really" needed?  Probably not as I got some pretty amazing results from that tank and several others I had at the time as well.With todays technology you can make this hobby as high tech as you wanna make it and as automated as you wanna make it.  Thats a good thing dont get me wrong!  But the more dependent you become on technology and automation, the more oppertunity there is for a malfunction.  To give you a better idea of what I am talking about watch a couple of you tube vids on Mike Paletta and Sanjay Joshi to get more of an idea of what I am talking about.  Unlike the average hobbist these guys spend a lot of time out of town away from their tanks on speaking engagements and research projects, and have intensely stocked tanks.  For them automation is almost unavoidable and makes a lot of sense.In my opinion and experience, there is a lot more to success in the reefing hobby other than how high your Calcium, Magnesium, Stronium or Iodine levels are in your water.  If you have a large tank heavily stocked with SPS corals and large Clams coming out your ears, you may struggle to keep water parameters in check and up to par, 24/7 dosing may be required to keep up, but the average hobbyist  doesnt often find themselves in that position.  Water quality is certainly a important aspect but its not the only piece to the puzzle so to speak...look at the bigger over all picture for consistent success is all I am trying to say here.  If you find yourself in a situation where you NEED to dose, then by all means dose as required!  Just understand technology and automation can be a blessing and it can be a double edged sword.

 

[jccaclimber]

When I got my dosing pump I opted for the 3 head.  Like many other people I suspect, it sits idle at the moment.  I went down the path I think you are going down, so I want to question a few of your assumptions.1) You are making the assumption that you will not be able to keep up your parameters with water changes.  Until you have tested to confirm this, I would not make that assumption.  You can also opt for salts with a higher calcium/alk levels to help keep them up.  Test your incoming salt mix at least at the start of the bucket.  I discovered the mix I was using was very low in mag, which explained part of why I seemed to always need to dose it.2) I would try manually dosing.  If it turns out you can dose once per week and keep things in order, then it's up to you if you really want to buy a dosing pump or not.  In the beginning I was dosing weekly.  By the time I got my dosing pump I was dosing daily to keep my alk up.  This is what finally drove me to a dosing pump.3) I agree that the 3 head pumps are better.  They aren't much more expensive than a 2 head pump.  Unless you're dripping kalk (in which case you need a pH controller, or just set up a dumb drip and test), you're going to need at least two heads (alk and Ca).  If you ever want to experiment with dosing anything else you need the third head.  In my case I planned to dose mag (until I discovered I was taking it out with water changes and precipitation from manually dosing kalk without a drip).  One month I used it to push kalk in to another nearby tank, and another month I used it as a no-feedback ATO on a biocube.  So, moral is that I used the third head a lot, even if it wasn't for a specific thing the entire time.4) Ultimately I still needed to test all the time with 2 part.  For whatever reason I wasn't able to get it balanced to the point where I wasn't constantly tuning the dosing.  I got lazy and started just testing alk rather than alk and calcium.  I thought things were under control and it turned out my calcium had plummeted.  At some point a bottle got mixed (they were labelled, but I put the wrong solution in) and I had alk fluid in both the alk and calcium containers, and then an alk swing from that.  Everything said and done I found that I'm happier with dripping kalk at the moment.  On my next tank I suspect I'll put the dosing pump back on for various experiments.  In the mean time though I'm messing around with dripping kalk via a pH controller (was doing it manually for a while).  I've seen a lot of tanks with a disconnected 3 head doser under the stand, so I really do wonder how common my experience is.5) No experience with your doser options.  Mine is a Bubble Magnus.  I had an issue where the programming had reverted to an old setting.  I never was able to get a reply out of their support e-mail, so I can't recommend them.

 

[Oscarmk]

Thank you for sharing your experience LunaticFringe, Kalkwasser is definitely the first thing that comes to mind for dosing. I was originally thinking of just putting it in the ATO reservoir like a lot of people, but I've read that can cause some problems and is not as precise. I actually have space to keep 30-40 gallons of water in my home office where my tank is, but I can guarantee my Wife wouldn't like it . The dripper sounds like a viable alternative anything in particular you would recommend to set it up?.The technology dependency aspect is why I avoided dosing all this time, I know it can and does go wrong, but I've also read a lot of success stories of people dosing for  years without issues, there must be a way to do it right and have redundancy/alarms for when it goes wrong. My water quality is definitely good, and my parameters aren't bad just a little low Ca at 380. I might just need to get a salt mix that has higher Ca like jccaclimbler is suggesting, I am currently using Fritz Pro Reef, a good salt for sure, but perhaps not for people that don't dose.Jccaclimber thank you for sharing also, my testing tells me water change is either not enough or my salt doesn't have enough Ca, you mention salts that have a high Ca level, would you recommend any?, which one do you use now?. I have a 75 gallon, with only a RS-100 Sump (quite small but nice design), with the rock and the fact that I run my return pump at its lowest setting so my water doesn't actually go all the way to the rim and I don't get much salt creep on the top, my actual volume is only about 65 gallons measured when I filed it the first time. I do 5 gallon water changes weekly, I can do more of course, but I find 5 gallons buckets change very convenient and easy. I would like to avoid manual dosing, as I will invariably forget doing it and its more time consuming than it sounds for sure. Getting the dosing part right definitely sounds like a challenge and a lot of testing, but it seems once you find the balance it pays off. Definitely agree 3 heads would be better for dosing, which ph controller are you using to drip Kalk now?,  Also what salt are you using?Haven't seen any tanks with disconnected dosers, but it would be interesting to know their experiences if anyone has done this.

 

[jccaclimber]

My large tank is mostly still the initial fill of Fritz from when I set it up.  I dose in to it, but don't change much water.  I got that bucket because it was cheap, but probably won't get more once it is out.  I've used Seachem (not AquaVitro) in the past and it was very low in Mg.On smaller tanks like the biocube I'm using Red Sea Coral Pro.  With that I've found Alk around 11, Ca around 450, Mg around 1400.  This compares to the normal Red Sea salt where Alk is around 7, Ca around 400, and Mg around 1300.  I haven't done much testing on the Fritz, and haven't tried anything else.I'm currently using an Apex Classic to drip Alk, but that's new for me in the last couple weeks.  Previous to that I just had a 5 gallon container with a tap in the bottom.  I filled it up with kalk, set it to drip, and refilled in a few days.  I'm sure the pH was moving around, parameters moving, etc, but it was a major improvement over not having it, the coral is growing, and I'm happy.I'm hoping the increased stability of the Apex putting in the kalk will help keep my alk/Ca a bit more stable, and allow some forgetfulness on my part.  That said, I'm preparing a bigger (600ish gallons water volume) system, so this is prep for that.  In my mind an Apex is a very expensive item if just used to drip Kalk.  A was warned by someone else to use two pH probes and calibrate them monthly if I'm going to use that as a way to control Kalk, as they can drift and may cause issues.  In the mean time I'm also using a small (3-5 gallons) water volume behind the kalk drip so that if it does go haywire there is a limit to how much kalk it can pour in.

 

[Oscarmk]

What do you plan to get once your Fritz runs out for your larger tank?, mine is about to run out, considering maybe switching but not sure yet. I plan to do the same thing you are doing, a small kalk reservoir to limit the risk. I don't have an Apex as I decided to go with GHL Profilux 4, I could buy the slave GHL Doser 2.1 to drip kalk as mentioned earlier and tie it to a PH probe, it allows to tie n number of sensors per pump, but would only use a PH probe - calibrating monthly sounds painful though, but I guess it needs to be done. 

 

[jccaclimber]

I'm going to go with Red Sea for a while and see how that works out.  I don't change much water though, my tank consumes nitrates as fast as I can put them in, and I've been messing with dosing things.

 

[Oscarmk]

My tanks is pretty good about nitrates as well thankfully, always at zero. You going with red sea pro or regular?

 

[jccaclimber]

Probably Pro just because I'll have it on hand and I don't want to keep two types of salt mixed up.  I already have 400 gallons of water stored in my garage (300 fresh, 50-100 salt) and I don't really want to keep another container going.  My general recommendation is:-Use the standard if you do not have trouble keeping your parameters where you want them (ie your consumption is low, you are dosing, etc.).-Use the Pro if you want to use your water changes to pull your Ca/Alk levels up.It's a balancing game either way.  Personally I'd like my tank to be slightly above 0 for nitrates (hmm, another use for that third dosing head?), but with the amount I feed I haven't had an issue with pale corals.  I'm sure the above can be achieved with other salts as well, that's just where my experience is.

 

[LunaticFringe]

Thank you for sharing your experience LunaticFringe, Kalkwasser is definitely the first thing that comes to mind for dosing. I was originally thinking of just putting it in the ATO reservoir like a lot of people, but I've read that can cause some problems and is not as precise. I actually have space to keep 30-40 gallons of water in my home office where my tank is, but I can guarantee my Wife wouldn't like it . The dripper sounds like a viable alternative anything in particular you would recommend to set it up?.

 The technology dependency aspect is why I avoided dosing all this time, I know it can and does go wrong, but I've also read a lot of success stories of people dosing for  years without issues, there must be a way to do it right and have redundancy/alarms for when it goes wrong. My water quality is definitely good, and my parameters aren't bad just a little low Ca at 380. I might just need to get a salt mix that has higher Ca like jccaclimbler is suggesting, I am currently using Fritz Pro Reef, a good salt for sure, but perhaps not for people that don't dose.Im not so sure the biggest problem is setting things up right or wrong as much as it is, anything made by man kind can and eventually will fail you or malfunction.  Thats where folks have the biggest issues at with tank disasters associated with dosing systems and automation.  What I like about my dripper system is there is very little to go wrong and if it does, its small enough in scope everything should survive the storm none the less for wear and tear.  I might have to do a 20% emergency water change, things might look pissy for a couple of days while it recovers but I have never had any regrets/issues over the last 15 years.  Can you say that about other systems?  I am a firm believer in the KISS principal...Keep It Simple Stupid.  The simpler it is the less that can go wrong and the less likely it is to go terribly wrong when "the ball doesnt bounce my way".

Reef Crystals used to have a formulation that was higher in several components critical to SPS freaks.  Dont know if they still do or if over the years something better has hit the market and I am just unaware as I havent been too hot in heavy into reefing the last several years.  Reef Crystals is what I use and its a significant improvement over Instant Ocean.  I am pretty sure most of the salt mixes on the market is by a couple of different suppliers and just formulated a bit different for each of its customers as per their specifications.

 

[LunaticFringe]

Okay I give up....trying to get the quotes in the right place and my reply in the right place obviously aint happening but hopefully you can make heads or tales of my reply.  This computer is 2% smarter than I am today.