Dosing vs. quality salt

[emerald crab]

How often do you do water changes? My dosing pumps come on twice an hour.

[AquaPin]

I only do water changes, every week I do 10-15% water change with H2Ocean. No dosing, currently have a few SPS and several LPS, mushrooms, etc. in a 30G tank. I think you need to evaluate how stocked the tank is too. The more things pulling it out, the more likely you will need dose or increase your water change frequency.

Jason

[e46er]

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

[whatcaneyedo]

Originally Posted by troni

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.