All for reef and vinegar dosing

[Mack75]

Hi! I'm dosing 16 ml of All for Reef daily, around the clock, with the Apex DOS. I'm also dosing 15 ml of vinegar during daylight hours to help with high nutrients. Not surprisingly I'm seeing rather low pH, but not critically so. I would, however, like to adjust dosing of the two to see if I can get a higher overall pH. I've been feeding the numbers to IA, ang got the following advice:

"The Ideal Dosing Schedule
Set up your automated dosing pumps to distribute the daily totals using the following breakdown:

• All-For-Reef (16 mL total): Dose 1.2 mL every hour, but only between 10:00 PM and 10:00 AM(10 hourly doses total, skipping daytime).
  • Why: It takes roughly 4 to 6 hours for bacteria to convert the calcium formate in AFR into pH-boosting carbonate alkalinity. By stacking the 16 mL dose overnight, the actual pH-raising effect will peak during the morning and early afternoon, perfectly lifting your 8.08 low point.
• Vinegar (15 mL total): Dose 3 mL every hour between 12:00 PM (Noon) and 5:00 PM(5 hourly doses total).
  • Why: This isolates the acidic drop to the absolute brightest part of the day when your corals are consuming CO₂ via photosynthesis, preventing the vinegar from dragging your pH down below 8.08.

What to Expect
By shifting your 16 mL of AFR entirely to the night and morning, you should see your lowest pH point rise from 8.08 up toward ~8.14.
However, because 15 mL of vinegar creates a high demand for oxygen and releases a lot of bacterial CO₂ in your Neptunian Cube sump, scheduling alone might hit a ceiling around 8.20. If your pH does not reach your target after a week on this schedule, drawing outside air into your skimmer or using a CO₂ scrubber will be required to clear out the carbon dioxide the vinegar bacteria are generating.
How many dosing heads/channels do you currently have available on your pump setup? If you have a spare, we can discuss adding a tiny amount of Kalkwasser to completely eliminate the vinegar pH penalty."

Does this make sense?

 

[Akumazeto]

Hi! I'm dosing 16 ml of All for Reef daily, around the clock, with the Apex DOS. I'm also dosing 15 ml of vinegar during daylight hours to help with high nutrients. Not surprisingly I'm seeing rather low pH, but not critically so. I would, however, like to adjust dosing of the two to see if I can get a higher overall pH. I've been feeding the numbers to IA, ang got the following advice:

The Ideal Dosing Schedule
Set up your automated dosing pumps to distribute the daily totals using the following breakdown:

• All-For-Reef (16 mL total): Dose 1.2 mL every hour, but only between 10:00 PM and 10:00 AM(10 hourly doses total, skipping daytime).
  • Why: It takes roughly 4 to 6 hours for bacteria to convert the calcium formate in AFR into pH-boosting carbonate alkalinity. By stacking the 16 mL dose overnight, the actual pH-raising effect will peak during the morning and early afternoon, perfectly lifting your 8.08 low point.
• Vinegar (15 mL total): Dose 3 mL every hour between 12:00 PM (Noon) and 5:00 PM(5 hourly doses total).
  • Why: This isolates the acidic drop to the absolute brightest part of the day when your corals are consuming CO₂ via photosynthesis, preventing the vinegar from dragging your pH down below 8.08.

What to Expect
By shifting your 16 mL of AFR entirely to the night and morning, you should see your lowest pH point rise from 8.08 up toward ~8.14.
However, because 15 mL of vinegar creates a high demand for oxygen and releases a lot of bacterial CO₂ in your Neptunian Cube sump, scheduling alone might hit a ceiling around 8.20. If your pH does not reach your target after a week on this schedule, drawing outside air into your skimmer or using a CO₂ scrubber will be required to clear out the carbon dioxide the vinegar bacteria are generating.
How many dosing heads/channels do you currently have available on your pump setup? If you have a spare, we can discuss adding a tiny amount of Kalkwasser to completely eliminate the vinegar pH penalty.

Does it make sense?
















pH. I'm currently drawing fresh outside air into the skimmer, but still seeing a rather low daytime pH at 8,18 (8,08 at night).

Yeah, that makes sense. 8.08 at night isn’t terrible, but I’d definitely try to get it a little more stable. Since you’re already pulling outside air, I’d be curious to see what your Alk is running at before changing the dosing too much.

 

[Mack75]

Alk 7,62 (Hanna) last Sunday, and I would like to push it above 8

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I urge not dosing organics at night due to low O2.

I think the AI has far more confidence than is justified (the exact pH numbers it quotes, for example), but it’s an ok experiment to try, IMO.

 

[painter1982]

I urge not dosing organics at night due to low O2.

I think the AI has far more confidence than is justified (the exact pH numbers it quotes, for example), but it’s an ok experiment to try, IMO.

Does this go for ammonium dosing too?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Does this go for ammonium dosing too?

I would dose it during the day as that seems when corals most take it up. Depending on what is happening to it, it may not consume O2.

 

[Mack75]

I urge not dosing organics at night due to low O2.

I think the AI has far more confidence than is justified (the exact pH numbers it quotes, for example), but it’s an ok experiment to try, IMO.

The exact numbers are actually supplied by me, I'm seeing 8,08 at night and 8,18 as a daytime high. It used to be higher, but that's what I'm working with now. Having said that, though, it has been my experience that AI gladly will supply conflicting advises or make up facts and numbers. In on of two separate threads AI has advised me that All for reef is an optimal candidate for bolus dosing, and in the other thread it has concluded that bolus would be a serious shock to my system

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

AFR is fine to dose bolus, and I’d do that mid morning.

this is one of the unjustified AI assertions,IMO:

By shifting your 16 mL of AFR entirely to the night and morning, you should see your lowest pH point rise from 8.08 up toward ~8.14.

 

[Mack75]

By shifting your 16 mL of AFR entirely to the night and morning, you should see your lowest pH point rise from 8.08 up toward ~8.14.

Yes, I fail to follow the logic of that exact postulation.

On a side note, I used to dose the entire daily amount of All for reef at once in my old tank and had great results

 

[Mack75]

@Randy Holmes-Farley How would you dose vinegar in combination with All for reef for most stable alkalinity and pH (preferably above 8,1 at all times)? I know I could probably mix in a bit of CAOH2 with the vinegar to limit the drop in pH, but I'm anxious to do anything that would lead to rapid alkalinity swings

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’d dose vinegar from the mid morning until just before lights out.

I’d dose AFR from early morning to just after mid day.