Canreef Aquatics Bulletin Board - Dosing vs. quality salt

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- - Dosing vs. quality salt (http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=84459)

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishytime (Post 696152)

no dosing for me, just water changes......now I wouldnt say that I have had phenomenal growth, definitely no where near the growth I had when I was dosing the tank heavily, before my move.....Im not really disappointed, outstanding coral growth is cool to a point.....then coral warfare and constant fraggin sets in.....

gust to bring it up,as the question is additional dosing y/n, did you, ore do others only add for KH and CA, or also trace materials. ?

I recently moved (5 months back) and have now a 7x3x1 table standing in the living room, and have to admit that taking care of it, is below what is should be, and I see it as well.

this summer a new tank will be build, but for now it has to hang in there.

water changes are not as it should be, nore dosing (exept for KH and CA, and resulting in no coraline algea at all (in my old tank everything was purple), but then I was also dosing.

so in general beside WC, what do you dose ?

KH CA. MG.

prodibio

That is all

Quote:

Originally Posted by troni (Post 696124)

So I was given a suggestion that made half sense. I was told that instead of dosing if you do religious water changes with a quality salt it will keep your levels at par. Now i dont see this because your adding water with proper levels to a water with low levels, overall youll have a level inbetween which is still below ideal.
Now i understand the use of quality salts. My Q is am i missing something? Does anyone do this with great growth on your sps?

On a 20gal depending on how heavily stocked it is you could probably get away with just water changes with specific salts. Natural seawater is around 420ppm Ca, 8dkh KH and 1300ppm Mg. So for example you could use something like Seachem Reef which I've tested as high as 550ppm Ca when you need more Ca or IO for Alk which I've seen at 11dkh. Or combine the two like I do for a balanced salt mix with high levels of those two elements.

Dosing is far cheeper / easier than water changes every few days.......
Maybe not so much with a 20 gal but anything over 40-50 gal would be expensive and labour intense to do WC every few days