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Recommendations for dosing system for a small tank (24 gallon)

Klatzy

Klatzy

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Moved my 24 gallon tank to the 1st floor and I can't use the simple gravity system I was using. Anyone have a recommendation for a good, reliable dosing system for a small one like mine. It's primarily going to be dosing All-for-reef and occasionally Kalkwasser as needed.
 
Ben from the Reefbeef podcast recommended a polyplab product for smaller tanks. It's an all-in-one product that seems a bit better than afr.

Personally for small tanks just do frequent small water changes with a quality salt.

I have a Kamoer x1 pump I could sell you if your heart is set on dosing
 
I've been doing 25% weekly water change for the past year or so (tank has had fish + corals for about that time). I've started noticing a drop in Alk over time (around Dec/Jan) and the gravity doser seemed to be keeping up when I added it back then. It's probably a bit overkill but it'll cut down on maintenance work at the same time to have an automatic doser.

Gotta use up the of All-for-reef I have (should last at least a year+) before I think about getting new stuff.
 
Water changes do not bring up your values, at least to that of original amount unless salt has elevated (above what you normally want to run) values.

e.g.
Fresh SW has an alk of "100", over time that number drops to "80", you do a 10% water change with the same brand of fresh SW, so 90% of the water is "80" and 10% is "100" the result after you mix the two is 0.9 x 80 + 0.1 x 100 = 82. So you barely raised your alk in this situation. Even with 25% water changes 0.75 x 80 + 0.25 x 100 = 85, barely moves the needle. Unless you do a 100% water change you'll never get back to those day 0 numbers.

Now if you use a very highly elevated mix that say mixes to "150" but you're happy with "100" then sure a 25% change 0.75 x 80 + 0.25 x 150 = 97.5, so you're at least ballpark there, but usually salt mixes will have a one or two elevated values will be "average" in others, so you might use Salt mix Y to bring up your alk, but then your calcium ends up dropping.

You really do need dose and not rely on water changes to increase your chemical stew values.
 
The simplest, cheapest, solution if you're doing AFR + water changes already is just put some AFR in your ATO water. That will cause it to be added slowly, and also means it'll likely get added slowly through the day (when temps are higher) which is also the recommendation for AFR dosing (do it when oxygen is higher).
 
richiev said:
The simplest, cheapest, solution if you're doing AFR + water changes already is just put some AFR in your ATO water. That will cause it to be added slowly, and also means it'll likely get added slowly through the day (when temps are higher) which is also the recommendation for AFR dosing (do it when oxygen is higher).
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In the ato is easier but since evap varies day to day it's better to use a doser for consistency then make up the rest of the volume with the ato.

That said I ran kalk in my ato for a long time and it worked, but I can see why it's not the best solution.

I would probably just dose the kalk for the ph boost as opposed to the trace elements in AFR. 25% weekly water changes should replenish enough trace.
 
I run an apex doser using the tropic Marin carbocalcium that doses both supposedly in a “proper ratio”

It works well for me and I can use one doser only.
 
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