# Dosing question.



## dcskmy (Mar 8, 2013)

Hello fellow reefers, I am in need of a guidance for dosing. I am using Red Sea foundation test kit to check my water parameters and will be using the Red Sea Ca, KH and Mg to dose. I estimate that I got around 50 Gal tank (main and sump combined excluding weight of live rocks). On Feb 23, my parameters were as follows: Mg - 1600 ppm; Alk - 9.2 dkh; Cal - 440 ppm.

Today (Feb 28): Mg - 1300 ppm; Alk - 7.8 dkh; Cal - 425 ppm. 

I would like to know in which order to MANUAL dose knowing that adding Calc would reduce Alk and vice versa. As well, can I dose for example Mg and Alk on the same day but with a 30 mins to an hour window in between?

Thanks for your advice. It's a learning curve for me to try to maintain a consistent parameters.


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## nc208082 (Jun 27, 2013)

Find out your daily alk consumption rate. Test one day and then at same time next day and you will find your daily consumption. 

Next find out how many ml you need to add to get desired kh.add equal dosing amounts of your calcium and mag to what your alk is. Yes spread the doses out. 30 mins is OK. 1 hour is better.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk


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## someguy (Sep 7, 2009)

dcskmy said:


> I would like to know in which order to MANUAL dose knowing that adding Calc would reduce Alk and vice versa. As well, can I dose for example Mg and Alk on the same day but with a 30 mins to an hour window in between?


Calcium and Alk shouldn't precipitate much at all unless your magnesium is really low, so it won't really matter what you dose first but the safe answer is do mag, then the other 2, 30mins/1hour apart between each.

Some products like Aquavitro's line say you can dose each element within minutes of each other, for a small tank it is ok but a bigger tank I would just wait 30 mins.


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## merlin416 (Jun 23, 2014)

use the link below, enter all your tank info and current parameter levels and levels want to be....then select dosing redsea foundation a, b or c and it'll calculate the daily dosage for you to get to where you want, but make sure you test your parameter after few day and ajust the dosage if needed.

https://reefapp.net/en/maintenance/dosing/calculator


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## mensa (Nov 25, 2015)

if advice from a noob is worth anything... 
and this is the first advice I have ever offered here
my experience is that a fluctuating mag level will reek havoc on the reliability of test results of other elements. so I always do mag first and always test the others when I have mag at the desired level. calc will precipitate alk so calc second. just my 2 cents.
having said that unless your trying to grow major corals you may not even need to worry that much as a good salt mix will give you a good balance right out of the box


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## dcskmy (Mar 8, 2013)

Thanks for the suggestions and the tool. I am going to test again this weekend and I did dose all the 3 elements on Feb 28 and while they went up slightly, KH was still below so I had dosed KH the past two days. Will test again this weekend to see the results.


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