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what and when should i dose?

fish keeper 7

fish keeper 7

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46 g 36" long bowfront about 20 in deep running 2 65w t5's blue and white, and im just wondering what i should dose and when should i dose it for when i do get corals?
what do you do?
when do you do it?
not looking for secifically what i should do since i need to re up on my test kits, but i just want to get an idea of what everyone does for their LPS and SPS, even their anemone (i have a green carpet anemone)

volitan lion
powder blue tank
harlequin sweetlips
bluespot jawfish
yashia goby
pistol shrimp
some nass snails, blue/red leg hermits, emerald crab and 25 lbs of live rock with 10 in the sump + some dead coral to maintain PH, and i have chaeoto algea in my sump
running a maxi jet 1200 and have 2 but only run on for now and everything is fine

planning on moving unsafe reef fish oveer to my new tank which in waiting to cycle so i can add corals in very very soon

*edit*
nitrite 0 nitrate 0 calcium 500 ph 8.0 mag? phos? dont know what those are for exactly.

any help or advice would be amazing.
 
DCG1286

DCG1286

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fish keeper 7 said:
its T5ho and i know of peple who keep sps with 2-3 watts/ gallon from t5's so im pretty sure will be ine.
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Watts per gallon is an ancient method ... and not very reliable at that. 176W of t-5's is not the same as 150W of MH ... etc.etc.
Plus to be honest with you I haven't seen a 65W T-5 bulb ... I would bet that they are compact flourscents ... who makes the fixture?
Also key to SPS is not the lighting ... it's water quality and stability. Lighting is secondary. :D

Also to answer your original post ... anything you dose, test for it.

I personally dose B-ionic 2 part alk/calc and the Magnesium from the same company ... I dose the calc/alk everyday, and magnesium every so often (didn't quite keep an exact schedule.)
 
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Avi

Avi

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Yes....65-watt T5's? I have to think that these aren't T5's but are rather PC's. And, if that's correct, there's a lighting shortfall for SPS and particularly the anemone that should be remedied so that it can survive.
 
dacaptain78

dacaptain78

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I got away with weekly water changes for a while until I had a decent amount of sps/lps in my tank. When I notices my calcium and alkalinity being used up quicker than the water changes could keep up with I began dosing ESV 2 part calcium and alkalinity daily, along with ESV magnesium as needed. Before adding sps to your tank you should address the lighting you have. It is almost certainly inefficient for sps and anemones.

What size tank are you moving the lionfish, powder blue, and sweetlips too? I have had my volitan lionfish since August 2006. He is by far my favorite fish.
 
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T

tosiek

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lol, so many problems from a simple dosing question.

First off, even though people are already giving you advice on your fish selection, your not going to take out the tang or anything not compatible with the 46g fish wise, but will learn once they get too big or turn super aggressive in the tank sooner or later =0) Ive done it, alot of other people have done it and its not going to end anytime soon.

Secondly, People do keep SPS, clams and such under T5's, with success on higher lamp T5 fixtures. With lower lamps and wattage your not feeding the coral a good amount of light. Light = food = energy, Lower you go provides them less and less energy to live, grow and flourish. Think of homeless children living off of a few grains of rice and water in some 3rd world country, because thats what your roughly doing the lower light your giving your coral. Knowingly beeing an opressive dictator to your coral inhabitants is one thing, but neively looking past what your actually doing and thinking its ok because your trying to save a buck or because "other people do it" is another thing. Realize what your doing and do it the right way or don't do it at all. Sorry had to throw that out there.

Anyways, as far as dosing, there are tons of posts here about how much and when to dose and with what.

You need to first know what you can keep, what you will keep. And have a healthy understanding of what each uses as a building block. LPS/softy tanks usually don't need dosing as your adding enough during water changes to make up for what they use usually.

Then you have to figure out what product to use, which addative does what to the coral, and why some are better than others. Reefcentral has a really good article on calcium, alk, and mag and their relations to each other as it matters when your making a dosing regiment and correcting calk/alk problems and PH problems later. We have a few posts linking to that thread. People can't tell you how much to dose as it matters on what your coral are using. IF you add more coral you will probably use more addatives. And people usually dose every day as it keeps the PH from dropping/rising too much.

Bionic is the best calk/alk choice and imo the easiest and best mag addative and the simplest iodine and stront addatives. You just have to dose calk/alk unless you keep alot of SPS then your mag might/will drop so you might have to add that too. Stront and iodine usually doesn;t have to be added if your keeping up with water changes but tanks vary, and even if it drops there is no info that it causes harm to your tank at lower levels, should be only added if your actively testing for both, and does cause problems with overdosing. Sometimes they might drop more than other people. You shouldn't add ANYTHING unless you have the proper good test kits. The API ones aren;t a good choice for calk/alk and mag i would get a good one to save you alot of time and energy with test kit procedures. Raising mag over 1500 will kill coral. Stay away from cheap kits they usually work descently at the start, but will fail quicker, have a larger number of defective kits, and give you wrong readings alot of the time or are super broad on their accuracy.
 
fish keeper 7

fish keeper 7

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First off, even though people are already giving you advice on your fish selection, your not going to take out the tang or anything not compatible with the 46g fish wise, but will learn once they get too big or turn super aggressive in the tank sooner or later =0) Ive done it, alot of other people have done it and its not going to end anytime soon.
Click to expand...

thank you... lol finally someone who doesnt repremand me on fish selection, i know that they get too big and i know that im going to upgrade when i get the money lol that just made my day, finally someone who gave me the answer i was looking for. =]
 
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