Stability And Accuracy Are the Name of the Game

One of the things that new aquarium keepers are rarely introduced to is dosing. There is so much material out there that goes into great detail about the importance of aquarium stability; hundreds of articles emphasize the importance of testing to make sure that all the different components of your saltwater stay in a balance that is conducive to keeping your fish happy and your corals thriving. Then when it actually comes time to do something about keeping your aquarium environment rock solid, the average article shies away from the how, and usually talks about the importance of water changes.

We don't mean to diminish the importance of water changes. They are the time tested and true method for both removing unprocessed waste material and importing fresh saltwater with all its buffers, minerals and trace nutrients. It is the oldest method in the world for successfully keeping a marine aquarium. It goes all the way back to the Roman Empire, where they designed ponds that used fresh ocean water coming in on tides to keep the water fresh enough to keep fish alive in them!

This being said, there comes a day in a saltwater aquarium's development where the invertebrates use up available alkalinity, calcium and a myriad of other minerals faster than they can be replenished without doing absolutely massive and frequent water changes. To further complicate this matter, densely stocked aquariums often produce waste at a rate that the filtration can't keep up with, and the result is water that runs out of buffering compounds too quickly, resulting in pH swings that are detrimental.

So, for those of you who don't have access to unlimited amounts of pristine, fresh seawater (or the unlimited budget needed to mix this much synthetic seawater) you'll need to come up with another way to replenish the goodies that stabilize and feed your tank's water. There's more than one way to do this, but today we'll focus on dosing. Most people start out by manually dosing their aquariums every day, but this process gets tedious, is not as accurate as we would like it to be and ties you to your aquarium every day. There is a better way, and to this end, we proudly offer the TMC Reef AccuDose to all of our retail partners and it is a very easy to use and intuitive system.

The core of this system is the Reef AccuDose, a high precision, completely programmable dosing pump. It is exceptionally accurate, as good as plus or minus one percent, and even less depending on volume. It is very stable and will not need to be recalibrated for up to 60,000 milliliters of dosing! The pump is ultra-quiet, being driven by a DC stepper motor (another reason for its incredible accuracy).

It is controlled via an app called TMC Reef AccuDose that you can download from the App Store and Google Play. This app can be used on any smartphone or tablet, which talk to the Doser via the integrated Bluetooth BLE connectivity. With the App, you can control the dosing times over each 24-hour period, and both the volume of these doses and the speeds at which they are brought into the system, which can prevent localized reactions from happening when too much of something gets mixed into not enough water. This speed can be controlled anywhere from 0.1 milliliter per minute all the way up to 105ml/min! To further prevent possible dosing complications, you can program a delay between the dosing of different components; this is especially important when dosing alkalinity and calcium (the most common two dosing solutions) as they can case a snowstorm (the calcium falling out of solution) if mixed directly with each other.

The AccuDose App also retains your dosing data for the last 28 days, and will retain all your settings, even in the event of a power outage. The system can run up to twelve, yes, a dozen different dosing pumps at once! To be perfectly honest, we have a hard time imagining that more than one percent of you will ever need more than four but if you do, we got your back! This system is perfect for Tropic Marin's three-part Balling Salt Supplement, which will maintain calcium, alkalinity and the ionic balance in your reef aquarium. You could also dose things like Tropic Marin's Liquid Aminos or even foods like Pro Coral Phyton, Zooton and Reef Snow!

The dosing pump and app can also communicate with other available components. There is an available water level sensor, and with it you can use the dosing pump as an auto top off. All aquariums will evaporate some water, and this leaves the water in the tank with too much salt. An automatic top off means that a sensor will read when the water level drops and will add fresh water back into the system to compensate. There is no better way to maintain stability of the simplest parameter, specific gravity. When you go and buy your AccuDose, ask that same store about getting you the water level sensor. This system can also be used to monitor how much dosing solution is left in your containers!

Another external component that can be integrated into the AccuDose System is a stir plate. Frequently the things we dose don't like to stay in solution and some of it will precipitate into a fine powder on the bottom of whatever you're holding your dosing solution in. This system eliminates this problem by mixing up any solution just before the dosing pump comes on. This stir plate can also be purchased through any Quality Marine retail partner.

So how do you actually set up and use the doser? The App has a great walkthrough, and there is a very informative video about calibrating and setting up the AccuDose pump and other components here:

Very simply, dosing consists of figuring out how much of a particular component that your aquarium uses and replenishing that amount at the same rate that it gets used. There is a little trial and error involved in the initial set up of this. What most of you will dose is Alkalinity, Calcium and Trace Nutrients (remember the Balling System!) Depending on the manufacturer you choose, they'll offer slightly different instructions, and you should follow these as a starting point. The fine tuning happens by daily testing for whatever you are dosing and making sure that these parameters are staying stable. If you see them increasing, or decreasing, then make adjustments to how much is getting dosed. It isn't uncommon for aquariums to go through more alkalinity supplement than calcium supplement initially. Once you've found your parameters to be stable for a week or two, you can decrease your testing down to weekly.

That's it, it's really quite simple. If you've been on the fence about automating your aquarium's dosing or you just needed a push to take that display to the next level, here is your sign. Head over to your Local Fish Store and ask them about TMC's Reef AccuDose system available from Quality Marine today!