Reef Discussion

LFSdirect

Member
Jul 11, 2011
223
149
Sydney
Dosing, why are you doing this?
There seems to be some obsession about dosing tanks in this hobby, as a freshman to this hobby some years ago I was taught to dose calcium ,magnesium,strontium and the rest......but I need to know why ?

The burning question is why so many hobbyists dose their tanks blindly without understanding their tanks real requirements, is it poor advice from an lfs recomending you need to have elevated levels of KH, Mg, Ca...... Why do I have these products in my cupboard, amongst all my test kits?

Surely a high quality salt mix is going to take care ...or furthermore, a calcium reactor will take care of my aquariums needs?

Ditch the dosing pumps.....What happened to the calcium reactor days?
 

MagicJ

Moderator
Jul 11, 2011
9,650
3,761
Hobart, Tasmania
I am an advocate of - if you don't measure don't dose it.

A few years ago the cost of dosing pumps was high which made the calcium reactor a cost effective alternative. But with the Chinese manufacturers now producing relatively cheap dosing pumps, and confirmation that common household products i.e. as used in Randys Recipe, could be used to maintain calc, alk and magnesium, the pendulum has swung the way of the dosing pump. I think the ease of setting up the dosing pumps has also helped their cause.

ASW is much better these days, but we are also keeping more stoney corals than we used to which means that some form of replenishment is required.

As for strontium and the rest, I don't dose anything else but the question about whether we should is very difficult to answer as we can't readily measure these elements.
 

LFSdirect

Member
Jul 11, 2011
223
149
Sydney
Excellent reply MagicJ,

You see, yesterday I was at hobbyists house doing tank maintenance/ cleaning, this used to be a great tank. However looking through the tank log book, there seemed to be some flaws in the schedule. ( as this was my first time there, you cant tread on toes and make huge calls on how we will fix this tank)
For some reason the old maintenance person is no longer around....

The customer said they have tried all types of coral and seem to loose them, the only survivers were good old morphs.

Upon further inspection water parameters were off the chart, KH was 18 phosphate were so off the scale, I can only estimate it at 2.00ppm Calcium was 700.....

What I am trying to achieve by this post is to make us all aware that you need to start asking why? Why do this and that? What latest trend are we following?
Do we understand the result of lifting the KH by one point.

Lets start by maintaining stability in our tanks and not have these huge swings with our sensitive creatures.
Lets try to get our main additives in the right ionic balance...
And ask questions as to why?
 

Matman

Member
Jul 13, 2011
512
109
Coffs Harbour
Regular water changes is all you really need to replace trace elements.And yes a calcium reactor is good as my local nsw is rather low.
 
V

'vspec'

Guest
And ask questions as to why?
One word, WHY?. Bang on there bud!
Taken as a whole, there are many paths to success, however understanding cause and effect is the only true way! so much so, that everything becomes intuitive with known variables.
 

brendore

Moderator
Oct 4, 2011
1,012
374
Port Macquarie, NSW, AUS
To quote Eric Borneman "... corals require an aquarium, seawater at the right temperature and salinity, water flow, light, food, bicarbonate/buffer, and calcium. Period. No other equipment, apparatus, magic potions, pills, voodoo, prayer, or other sacrifices are necessary". So if we all stick to keeping it simple we shouldn't have a hundred different supplements lying around. All you need is a tank with seawater, the right temp and salinity, proper water flow and lighting and a calcium reactor takes care of the rest.
So as you asked.. Why are we dosing anything and everything when we don't need to?
 
V

'vspec'

Guest
Timeline quotation?

Realisticly what is suggested is not overly 'simple' to begin with, it has relationships that needs to be understood regardless. By that time, what's a few extra to be mindful of with the rickshaw pace advancements and understanding seem to happen?
 

LFSdirect

Member
Jul 11, 2011
223
149
Sydney
Brendore I agree, my old tank was running sweet, I bought a Clam....the shop said "clams need iron", so I payed $ 30 put a bit of iron suppliment in the tank.....had cyno and algea problems like never seen before.....havent put iron near my tank for six months.....anyone for a hardly used iron suppliment?
 

brendore

Moderator
Oct 4, 2011
1,012
374
Port Macquarie, NSW, AUS
vspec - yes it is an oldish quotation however I think it still does reign true. And you are dead right.
Realisticly what is suggested is not overly 'simple' to begin with, it has relationships that needs to be understood regardless
. This is water chemistry 101. I think everyone needs to understand the basic principles of water chemistry "if I add this what is it going to do, and what else will be effected by it, and why (to revert to the original post) do I do it?" and to understand the basics you don't need a phd in marine science or molecular scientology all you need is the right advice and to apply your own understanding on what is going on, these skills tend to take time and trial and error.
IMO the rate of advancement in our hobby is a two sided coin. It is good we have marine scientist helping formulate products, but in this it is also bad as some people will take this as being the rule that you need to add this, that and something else to have beautiful corals, which is where my post was heading. ;)
 
V

'vspec'

Guest
This is water chemistry 101. I think everyone needs to understand the basic principles of water chemistry "if I add this what is it going to do, and what else will be effected by it, and why (to revert to the original post) do I do it?" and to understand the basics you don't need a phd in marine science or molecular scientology all you need is the right advice and to apply your own understanding on what is going on, these skills tend to take time and trial and error.
IMO the rate of advancement in our hobby is a two sided coin. It is good we have marine scientist helping formulate products, but in this it is also bad as some people will take this as being the rule that you need to add this, that and something else to have beautiful corals, which is where my post was heading
Well written. And your view is more than valid.
However welcome to the profiteering mechanism ~ Especially in US circles. Lets not forget money and advancements goes hand in hand, let alone based on capitalism.
The knowledge output in this instance, has far exceeded the sum.

The point which I would like to stress is that forums ( If they work the way they are meant to) should potentially curve the misinformation factor. Factual information is challenged to the point of definition, based on the network of information people are exposed to. Marine junkies, we tend to have a pretty far reach in most cases, cause we're forced to.
 

Edison

Member
Oct 4, 2011
135
63
Sydney
Dosing is really depends on what direction you are going with your tank. Simple FOWLR tank simple don't need dosing and simple soft coral tank don't need heavy dosing (water change would be efficient). Now if you are talking about heavily stocked SPS, it dosing becomes a vital part to maintain required elements and chemical as simply water change would not be enough to cover weekly water changes and im sure daily water changes become more of a pain then dosing.
 
Alas, if you have gone to the expense of setting up an expensive, large, LED lit heavily stocked SPS system then setting up an automatic 15% a day water change is going to be rather miniscule in the long run.... and extremly benificial IMO.

However ( READ I AM A REP FOR A MARINE COMPANY - So feel free to take this with a grain of salt)

There are some extremly good products avail on the market, and whilst to a degree i beleive some are not usefull in any way shape or form (and ill tell my customers this when they order) the right products can be extremly benificial. You just have to weed your way through the crap.

Remebering, some hobbiest are simply not willing to put in the time to learn... they just want to be told what to do to keep their tank alive. And from a store owner/employees point of view its easy to just sell them a few bottles of "snake oil" (hate the F*&%ing term) when they know that spending an hour explaining the in's and outs to them is pointless.

there are some great 2 part and 1 part products out there for the smaller aqauriums that will cover all the bases and if followed correctly can lead to a long living and thriving tank, if you have a larger tank then individual supplements and testing are required IMHO, especially if heavily stocked.

Excuse my ramblings

Mitch
 

brendore

Moderator
Oct 4, 2011
1,012
374
Port Macquarie, NSW, AUS
I think were starting to wander from the topic here guys.. The questions asked were...
There seems to be some obsession about dosing tanks in this hobby, as a freshman to this hobby some years ago I was taught to dose calcium ,magnesium,strontium and the rest......but I need to know why ?

The burning question is why so many hobbyists dose their tanks blindly without understanding their tanks real requirements, is it poor advice from an lfs recomending you need to have elevated levels of KH, Mg, Ca...... Why do I have these products in my cupboard, amongst all my test kits?

Surely a high quality salt mix is going to take care ...or furthermore, a calcium reactor will take care of my aquariums needs?

Ditch the dosing pumps.....What happened to the calcium reactor days?
So the answers IMO are...
1. We dose these products nowadays as we now know alot more about corals and their metabolisms/make up then we did even five years ago. In many recent documents it has been proven that adding these products can enhance colouration, health and rapid calcification of corals.
2. I think there are many reasons why hobbyists will dose blindly. i) Mostly due to misconceptions, misbeliefs and misinformation, and ii) Many hobbyists do not understand what the product does or is intended to do. So you can very easily end up with 20 products when you only need 5 of them to sucessfully keep corals happy and healthy. In some circumstances it can be entirely the lfs lack of knowledge, or equally the lack of knowledge of the hobbyist. Knowledge in our field really is power!
3. In most circumstances you would be right, however as mentioned if you have a heavily stocked sps system, with intense lighting, you will need to dose some form of supplementation to counter what is being used by calcifying organisms, other wise they will eventually use up what is available and this is when all sorts of problems occur. Calcium reactors are very handy, however they are limited in their production of calcium by variations such as size of the unit, calcium media used and how the unit is set up as well as the amount of calcium being taken up by calcifying organism.
4. I still believe there are places for calcium reactors in our hobby, and hell we probably don't use them enough, however as our knowledge and understanding of corals increases we realise that in some systems there simply isn't room for a calcium reactor when a liquid or powdered product does a better job, or the calcium reactor just can't keep pace with the amount of calcium being taken up by calcifying organism.