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How to Do Two-Part Dosing in the Marine Aquarium

When considering a marine aquarium, you need to pay attention to the chemical balances within your aquarium, especially if you have a reef aquarium. Fortunately, when your calcium or alkalinity is out of whack, there are products available which can help return your tank to gold star status. Known as two-part dosing, this method allows you to add just the right amounts of supplements to maintain calcium and alkalinity levels that are correct for your marine aquarium.

What Chemicals Are Involved in Two-Part Dosing?

No matter what kinds of organisms reside in your seawater aquarium, the two most crucial parts of your water to watch for are the calcium levels and the alkalinity. While many kinds of fish probably get enough calcium with frequent small water changes, the corals and clams you might have in your tank need a great deal of calcium for day-to-day living requirements, perhaps more than they would normally receive with a simple water change.

Alkalinity is important in seawater because it helps the water resist too many changes which might cause the water to become more acidic. The alkalinity is a direct function of how much bicarbonate, carbonate and lesser amounts of other elements are available in your seawater. If your tank lacks the buffering abilities of carbonate, for example, the alkalinity of your water can fall below levels your organisms would normally experience in the ocean.

The Basic Equipment for Two-Part Dosing

Perhaps the most critical piece of equipment you need for two-part dosing is a really good test kit. Never guess whether your tank needs a certain chemical addition, since too much of even a good thing like calcium is harmful for your marine organisms. Two testing rules of thumb are to test your water frequently, and only test and dose for one supplement at a time, since seawater is a fine balancing act between various chemicals.

If you decide after testing your aquarium water that you need more calcium or alkalinity, a simple method for adding these elements is to follow a two-part dosing program, which includes a calcium supplement and usually a bicarbonate supplement that focuses on adjusting the alkalinity of aquarium seawater. Theoretically, the two supplements should be added in equal amounts as required, but sometimes you might need to add more calcium than alkalinity supplement, or vice versa. That’s where a good testing kit is critical.

The two supplements are delivered to your tank by means of peristaltic dispensing pumps, which release the supplements into the water in small doses daily.

How to Dose Your Marine Aquarium Tank

The two-dose supplements come in powder form in half gallon or one gallon bottles. When you decide to dose your aquarium, your first task is to mix up solutions of each supplement in separate jugs. Follow the mixing directions listed on the sides of your supplement containers. When mixing up your solutions, only use reverse osmosis water.

The best way to mix the supplement powders into the water is to add a little supplement at a time to the water in the jug, shake the jug, then add a bit more supplement, until all the powder is mixed in. This prevents the supplements from clumping on the bottom of your water jugs. If clumping occurs, put the jug in a sink of hot water for awhile to warm the water up, which should allow for easier mixing. Once you’ve mixed up your supplements, let the jugs sit for a couple of hours to allow them to finish dissolving.

To do two-part dosing, you need two dosing pumps, one for each supplement. The dosing pump pulls either calcium or alkalinity solution from your additive jug to your aquarium by way of your aquarium pump. Many dosing pumps can be set to automatically deliver a dose at a steady rate, which eliminates time consuming manual delivery.

When adding the two-dose calcium and alkalinity supplements to your aquarium, do not add the two doses at the same time. Instead add the calcium first, and then wait an hour to add the alkalinity dose. Also, when adding two-part dosing to your aquarium, start with small amounts and slowly build up until you reach the levels of calcium and alkalinity you desire.

Why You Need Reverse Osmosis for Your Aquarium

As you get deeper into the world of marine aquariums, you quickly realize that the happiness of your organisms depends on the quality of their water. You might be tempted to pour tap water into your aquarium, since it’s convenient and cheap. But, depending on whether your water comes from a municipal source or from a well in the back yard, it can have too high of a pH, as well as harboring heavy metals, chlorine and other chemicals less than savory to your prize aquarium inhabitants. The answer to your water problems lies in owning your own reverse osmosis (RO) unit.

The Basics of Aquarium Reverse Osmosis Units

RO units purify the water by forcing tap water through a series of membranes and filters. The membrane lets the water molecules move through, but larger molecules, such as limestone and other minerals, and contaminants are stopped by the membrane. The end result is water that is up to 99 percent pure, depending on the type of membrane used.

The most basic membrane is a cellulose tri-acetate (CTA) membrane, which is manufactured from organic materials. Using a CTA will purify your water from 88 to 94 percent, but this membrane does not remove chlorine from the water. You’ll still have to have a dechlorinator for your aquarium, or you can set your water out for 24 hours before using it in order to let the chlorine gas dissipate.

A more advanced membrane is the thin film composite (TFC) membrane. Made of synthetic material, the TFC membrane in your reverse osmosis unit will remove 97.5 to 99 percent of water impurities.

Another membrane consisting of synthetic material is the high removal membrane. Like the TFC membrane, the high removal membrane purifies your water from 97.5 to 99 percent, with the added benefit of also removing silicates.

Along with the membrane, the RO unit also comes with a carbon block, a sediment filter, and deionization (DI) resin, if it is a four stage unit. If the RO device you’re looking to buy has less than four stages, it means the DI stage was left out. The DI resin is another method of purifying your tap water by means of an ion exchange. An RO unit without a DI stage can purify your water to 98 percent. A DI stage added to your RO unit purifies your water up to 99.9 percent. Sometimes all you need is 98 percent pure liquid, but if your fish are really finicky, the extra 1.9 percent purity provided by the addition of a DI stage can mean a great deal to your aquarium success.

Maintenance of a ReverseOsmosis Unit

Once installed, the maintenance of a reverse osmosis unit is reasonably simple. If your tap water comes from a city municipal source and is loaded with chlorine, a good rule of thumb is to change out the carbon and sediment portions of the RO unit about every six months. The membrane in your unit often lasts for years. However, the membrane can clog with time or even develop holes. The best way to monitor your unit is with a total dissolved solids (TDS) meter, which lets you keep track of the quality of your RO operations. For example, the DI resin should read between 0 and 1 using a TDS meter. If the resin reads above 1, it should be replaced.

 Do Not Use Pure Reverse Osmosis Water

A reverse osmosis unit does a fantastic job purifying your tap water for aquarium use, but it can create a product that’s actually too pure for your saltwater livestock, by stripping essential minerals from the water. One way to avoid this problem is to mix some of the tap water back into the RO water. Or you can add store bought minerals to the water. Even with a good RO unit, you still need to test frequently for pH and mineral levels, and water quality.

Reverse osmosis water is available by the gallon at supermarkets and aquarium stores. The point that makes owning your own RO unit worthwhile is that you control the quality of the water, since you can monitor your own unit. Purchasing water from the store means you have no idea when the RO unit last saw maintenance.

Choosing the Right Water Pump for Your Saltwater Aquarium

Aside from the aquarium itself, probably the next most important piece of equipment you need for your saltwater setup is a proper water pump. Without a quality pump, your saltwater aquarium lacks good water circulation that keeps the organisms happy and the filters working. Also, the water pump is used to give power to your filtration system, and possibly other devices, such as your protein skimmer. A good water pump makes life a lot more comfortable for your marine livestock.

Types of Fish Tank Pumps

The two most common marine water pumps in use today are the inline water pump and the submersible water pump. The inline water pump tends to be the more powerful of the two, and can move more gallons of water through your system per hour. Inline pumps are set up outside of the aquarium with inlet and outlet hoses.

The submersible water pump, goes directly into your aquarium, and therefore is easier to install, because you don’t have to worry about installing a bulkhead into your filtration system. Submersible pumps are also quieter to run, since the water around the pump absorbs much of the operating noise. These pumps draw water from the filter and then send the water back through the aquarium.

Whichever pump you choose, make sure it’s rated for the corrosive saltwater environment of your aquarium.

Choose the Pump That Fits Your Situation

One key item to consider when buying a marine water pump is heat dispersion. Because the submersible sits in the actual aquarium, the pump is water cooled, and the heat from the pump operations gets released directly into the water, which may make life uncomfortable for your aquarium residents. To combat this increase in water temperatures, you will probably need to install chillers to control water temperatures. The inline pump is air cooled, so operations generated heat dissipates outside of your tank of water.

If you decide on an inline pump, you need to consider which type of inline pump works best for your aquarium. The inline pressure configuration usually puts the pump in front of a canister filtration system. Because of the location, an aquarium pump in this situation can receive tremendous backwash from the filter. In this case make sure you buy an inline pump strong enough to handle the additional pressure.

The other inline pump configuration is referred to as the inline free-flow, whereby the pump is located behind the filtration device. Because inline pumps in this position receive very little pressure, they can transfer larger volumes of water with less effort than the inline pressure configuration.

Pay Attention to Gallons Per Hour (GPH) Rating

Regardless of whether you choose a submersible or an inline pump for your saltwater aquarium, you need to have a model that is powerful enough to both run some of your other equipment, like chillers and protein skimmers, as well as give you the proper amount of gallons per hour (GPH) for your aquarium and its residents.

To figure out the amount of GPH you need, multiply the total number of gallons your aquarium holds by five. This gives you the minimum GPH for your setup. Because the GPH rating listed on the side of every pump is based on the ideal situation of your head height located at zero feet, you should consider moving up to the next larger size of pump than your aquarium technically needs. With an oversized aquarium pump, you can always do some basic plumbing work to install ball valves that allow you to reduce water flow. However, if your pump is at the minimum GPH for your aquarium, and your setup requires more than your pump can give, your only alternative is to buy another, larger pump.

Where’s the Spare?

Because a water pump is such a critical piece of equipment for your marine aquarium, it helps to have a backup plan in case your pump ever stops working. Some people keep a spare pump on hand to pop into place, when things go wrong. Another alternative is to make sure the store or company you bought the pump from has an extra pump you can borrow immediately until yours returns from the manufacturer in a few weeks.

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