Dosing questions ??

[nyshoots]

A little about my tank.

50 cube heavily stocked mixed reef
15 gallon sump
Kessil A360W light
Rlss skimmer
ARID Macro reactor
Weekly 10 gallon water changes using RSCP

Other then feeding, scraping glass, cleaning the skimmer, trimming back macro algae, and water change. No other weekly maintenance is done. No carbon, no phosphate remover, no additives no nothing.

This set up has been running very stable for months and all my corals are showing excellent growth but sps colors are not as good as they could be.

I'm thinking of starting a dosing program to try and dial in color and take things to the next level. The problem is that I see most programs are based on calcium uptake which I currently do not dose for. I honestly don't even test parameters anymore because everything is growing so well and the ARID keeps phosphate and nitrate so low that I need to feed 3 times a day just to keep the chaeto growing at a good pace.

So my question is if I start testing CA, MG, and KH, and dosing for uptake on a daily basis along with a product like fauna marin balling light for trace in an effort to increase sps color does that mean that I could or should go back to smaller 5 gallon water changes once a week or bi weekly 10 gallon water changes ???? Also what based on experience is the easiest most forgiving system for dosing 2 part and trace.



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[bonomo53]

After reading your post i see you mentioned that you need to feed 3 times a day to keep the chaeto growing. What are your phos and nitrate levels? That can cause the problem with color. To really help we will need some more information.
What salt are you using?
What is your alk cal mag levels?
What is stocked in the tank?
Are the sps turning brown?

 

[nyshoots]

I don't currently test for any parameters anymore. I use Red Sea Coral Pro salt and do 10 gallon water changes once a week. The last time I checked phos was .04 according to Hanna meter and nitrate was undetectable with red sea test. The tank is fully stocked with LPS, SPS, softies, and rbta... For fish I have a large percula, large neon dotty, large melanaris wrasse, large bengaii cardinal, extra small Niger trigger and an extra small snowflake eel. Trigger is little more then an inch and eel is the smallest I have seen for sale in a shop.
AlK, CA, and MG were in the past 11, 420, and 1200 consistently over 6 months with the weekly 10 gallon water changes. Because of the fact that I'm running the ARID chaeto reactor which grows chaeto like crazy, if I hold back on feedings the chaeto starts to stop growing. The manufacturer recommends dosing nitrate and iron and using this product which I don't do I just feed more. My corals aren't browning out at all. I have really good growth and decent color but I'm looking to take it a step further and try dosing trace to get the BEST color I can out of them. There is currently nothing wrong with my system that I am trying to fix I'm just trying to tweek it a little

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[nyshoots]

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[nyshoots]

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[nyshoots]

This is a good example .... This is a purple milli that's grown inches in a few months however the color is a little pale. It's purple and blue like it's supposed to be but not as bright as it could be or once was.

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[bonomo53]

If you have 0 nitrates and very low phos i would try to lower the alk to the 8-9 range but that will be hard with the coral pro salt. That is the main reason i stopped using it. The coral pro salt is really made for tanks with large sps colonies because the alk is so high. If you want to try to lower the alk i would switch the the regular red sea salt.