- After some months have gone by,
a few things will likely happen.
Your new tank high will start to wear off,
your corals will start consuming
a lot more calcium and carbonate,
and those weekly water changes
will become much more of a drag.
A dosing pump may blow away those doldrums
and breathe new life into this hobby.
Dosing pumps differ from utility pumps,
wavemakers, and return pumps in two significant ways.
First, they are designed to pump
much smaller amounts of water.
And second, dosing pumps are highly accurate.
So you're able to dose precise amounts.
These two things make dosing pumps ideal
for two-part dosing, automatic water changes,
and the micro-dosing of anything,
from phytoplankton to coral aminos.
But by far the most common use of dosing pumps
is for two-part dosing or it's one part equivalent
in something like Tropic Marin's,
All-For-Reef or Kalkwasser.
Most dosing pumps function using peristalsis,
so we call them peristaltic dosing pumps.
The easiest way to understand this
is by using the human body as an example.
When you swallow food or liquids,
your esophagus transports that food
from your mouth to your stomach
by use of constricting and relaxing muscles,
which creates a wavelike movement
that propels that food to your stomach.
Let's take that same peristaltic movement over to our hobby.
Instead of muscles, we have pumps with rollers
that will propel that liquid towards its destination.
To make it even more simple,
let's just use this piece of silicone tubing as an example.
When it's filled with liquid,
the rollers in a peristaltic pump
will push that liquid up and out,
hence peristaltic movement.
Based on the speed that the peristaltic pumps rotate,
they can dose anywhere from one milliliters per minute
to well over 100 milliliters per minute.
With over 30 options available on our website,
here are six things to consider to help you choose
the right dosing pump.
First up is the number of heads.
This one's pretty simple.
If you're dosing one thing,
like Tropic Marin All-For-Reef,
you'll need a dosing pump with one head.
Two things, two heads.
Number two is size.
While most dosing pumps are quite small,
they come in various shapes and sizes.
So it's important to figure out where you're gonna put it
and choose a dosing pump that will work in that location.
Number three is the flow rate.
This one can be a it tricky for true beginners out there,
because you don't have a frame of reference
for how many milliliters you need to dose daily.
But generally speaking, if you're using your dosing pump
for an automatic water change system,
you will need something that pumps a lot more,
like 50 milliliters per day.
But if you're dosing two-part Kalkwasser
or Tropic Marin All-For-Reef,
then you don't need nearly as much flow.
So a one milliliter per minute option works just fine.
The fourth consideration is the lifespan of the pump itself.
Some less expensive dosing pumps out there,
such as the Kamoer X1,
have a continuous running life of around 2000 hours.
Whether or not that sounds like a lot to you,
if you're only dosing 10 milliliters of liquid a day,
I estimate that that Kamoer tank
will run for around 30 years.
But if you need to dose a hundred milliliters a day,
it goes from 30 years down to three years.
The fifth consideration mounting options.
Some dosing pumps, like this BRS dosing pump,
can be mounted to a wall
or the inside of a wooden cabinet stand,
while other options just have to be placed
on their own feet.
The sixth and final dosing pump consideration,
controllability.
These BRS dosing pumps don't have any built-in controls,
so you will need to pair them with some sort of timer.
The Bubble Magus line of dosing pumps have built-in controls
so you're able to program them directly in the unit itself.
And lastly, you have wireless controls
as found in Kamoer, Red Sea, Ecotech,
and Neptune Systems dosing pumps.
All of these come with an app
and are programmable on the fly.
What is our choice for dosing pump?
This one was actually really easy to choose,
because the one we went with
is by far the most popular option here at BRS,
and we're talking about the Bulk Reef Supply 2-Part Doser.
If you're gonna be two-part dosing,
one part dosing something like Kalkwasser,
or Tropic Marin All-Of-Reef,
or dosing coral aminos,
or some sort suspended phytoplankton,
then go with a 1.1 milliliter per minute option.
But if you intend to use these pumps
to do an automatic water change,
then the 50-milliliter per minute option
is the best one for you.
Since there are no programming functions
built into these pumps themselves,
you will need to pick up some sort of timer.
If you have an aquarium controller such as the Neptune Apex,
the EBA 8 Bar will work just fine.
Here at BRS, we sell Save a Watt Digital Timers,
but any sort of timer or wifi power strip
will work just fine.
Step one for setting up your new dosing pump,
is determining the daily dosing levels.
Let's use Tropic Marin All-For-Reef as our example.
Test alkalinity at the same time every day for several days
to determine how much is being depleted daily.
Following the directions on the container,
just increase or decrease how much you dose every single day
until you find that perfect amount.
Step number two, setting up your doser.
Completely remove both the inlet and outlet nuts.
Slide the nuts down each tube just a few inches.
Make sure to keep the threads pointed
toward the short end of the tube.
Push the tube onto the inlet side of the BRS Doser
marked with an arrow pointing toward the pump.
Be sure to push the tube all the way on the nipple,
then tighten the compression nut by hand.
Do the same with the tube
on the outlet side of the BRS Doser
marked with an arrow pointing away from the pump.
Step number three, calibrate.
Place the inlet tube into a jug of solution or water.
Place the outlet tube into a 100-milliliter cup.
Turn on the doser until the tubing is completely purged
with the water or solution,
and then unplug the doser from the power source.
Turn on the doser for exactly 10 minutes.
Check how much solution or water is in the measuring cup.
Divide this number by 10
to determine how many milliliters the pump emits
for its particular setup.
Step number four, install,.
Find a convenient place for the BRS Doser
in your system setup.
Place the inlet hose into the desired two-part jug
and position the out outlet tube
in a high flow area of the tank.
To prevent clogging, do not submerge the outlet hose.
Determine how long the pump needs to operate
to dose the desired amount.
For example, to dose 33 milliliters of two-part a day,
divide 33 by 1.1.
And you'll find that the pump needs to run for 30 minutes.
Plug the BRS doer into a digital timer
or aquarium controller,
and set it for the amount of time
determined in the last step.
I've made a lot of near catastrophic dosing pump mistakes
in my time in this hobby,
from placing the output lines too close together,
not testing enough,
and back siphoning aquarium water
into my dosing pump container.
Set up your dosing pump correctly
by watching this video right here.
And as always everyone, thanks for watching.
Happy reefing, be well.
We'll see you next time.