Time to dose or not??

What is the best method to increase mag, ca, and alk?

I have done some research and some say its best to do a few large water changes and others say dose.

I haven't added anything to my 15g besides a feather duster and yet my ca dropped from 400 to 360, alk is 7 and mag is 1200

15g: 1 leather, xenia frags, zoo frags, 3 sml mushrms, duncun and dendro frag. Its all small except the leather which isn't large.

I just changed my salt to io reef crystals as my regular salt wasn't disolving completely after 24hr mixes.

I'm not sure what course of action to take.

 

if it's that small of a tank, I'd say just do water changes. IMO you shouldnt really need to dose anything under 50 gallons and water changes are enough.

 

Thats your answer. I wouldnt worry too much. Let your coral acclimate to the new salt.

 

Ok. So should I do a few larger water changes? I normally do 10% a week?

 

That's plenty. you don't want to do to many large ones because it'll set back your tanks bacteria growth and you could run into some problems. Only time I've ever done large water changes is when I have a horrible algea problem. other then that its usually 10% or sometimes 20% if I skipped a week.

 

I thought this questioned was already answered in your other thread? Test daily to see what the tank is using and decide if dosing is required. You can't assume that water changes alone will keep the tank stable. While it may work for one person, no tank is alike. Corailline algae alone will deplete your big 3. What you need to accomplish is stability piano, not a number persay. Keeping alk, mag and calcium stable throughout the week is way more important than a number and there's no way your gonna know that water changes are gonna work without testing daily to see what the tank is using.

 

I have been testing every other day with no change. All 3 have stayed the same in both tanks. No change.


I'm trying to determine how to correct the issue because I haven't added anything or changed anything.

I wasn't sure if dosing would be better than water changes?

 

Dosing if you don't need to will just overdose your tank and will cause issues as well. If your tank doesn't use much through out the week then water changes should be fine. Just keep an eye on the params periodically. That's what makes this fun.