Choosing the Right Red Sea Dosing Pump (Complete Buyers Guide)

OK, guys, today I want to talk about my new toy – the Red Sea dosing pump. I’ve been messing around with reef tanks for a while now, and I’ve always just kinda eyeballed it when it comes to adding stuff to the water. But lately, I’ve been thinking I should probably get a bit more scientific about it, you know, for the sake of the corals and all that.

So, I started looking into dosing pumps. I saw some folks online talking about this Neptune DOS pump for automatic water changes, which sounded pretty cool, but also a bit pricey. Then I stumbled upon the Red Sea ReefDose. It seemed like a decent option, and the price wasn’t too outrageous, so I thought, “What the heck, let’s give it a shot.”

Getting Started

First off, this thing comes in a couple of different versions. You can get it with either two or four of these little dosing heads. I went with the four-head model because, why not? More is better, right? Anyway, I ordered it online, and it showed up at my door a few days later. Ripped that box open like a kid on Christmas morning.

Setting It Up

Getting it set up was a breeze. It came with these colorful hoses, which was a nice touch. Made it easy to keep track of which tube was for what. They even threw in some accessories, which was cool. I followed the instructions, hooked up the hoses, and plugged it in. Boom, done. Honestly, it took longer to unpack the thing than it did to actually set it up.

Figuring It Out

Now, this thing is supposed to be super accurate, like down to a single drop. I’m not sure I can verify that, but it definitely seems precise. It’s got these bespoke, “patent-pending” dosing heads, which I guess is what makes it so accurate. The Red Sea calls it a “bespoke” dosing head, whatever that actually means.

• First thing I did was prime the pumps. Just ran some water through them to get all the air out of the lines. Pretty standard stuff.
• Then, I calibrated them. The instructions walked me through it. Basically, you just tell it how much liquid to dispense, and it figures out how long to run the pump.
• After that, I set up my dosing schedule. You can do this through their app, which is pretty slick. I set it to dose my calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium supplements every day. I started with the recommended dosages from the supplement bottles, but I’ll probably tweak it as I go along.

Using It

I’ve only been using it for a few weeks now, but so far, so good. It’s definitely convenient not having to manually dose everything. And I’m hoping it’ll help keep my water parameters more stable, which should be good for the corals. The app is pretty handy, too. I can check in on my dosing schedule and make adjustments from anywhere. It’s like having a little robot butler for my reef tank.

Overall

Yeah, so far I’m pretty happy with the Red Sea ReefDose. It seems well-built, it’s easy to use, and it’s definitely making my life easier. I’ll keep you guys updated on how it goes in the long run. I saw that some folks were asking about the Red Sea supplements, too. I haven’t tried those yet, but maybe I will in the future. We’ll see. Anyway, that’s my experience with the Red Sea dosing pump. Hope this was helpful, folks!