All For Reef in AIO

[reefdoink]

My tank is fairly new, it has been up since 9/27/2020 if you're curious. So I have bought a dosing pump and some Tropic Marin All-For-Reef. It's Tropic Marin's Balling method but in one container if I understand it correctly. I am wondering if keeping the Mag, Alk, Calc more stable if it would help with algae? I know phosphates and nitrates are the primary driver for algae. I'd really like to add some corals at some point, but want to get the chemistry stabilized before doing so. Any thoughts or tips would be great. I will test my water soon and post current parameters for more detail.

 

[Spare time]

The all for reef won't help or hurt algae. Phosphates are the main driver (since there is usually always enough nitrate)

 

[Drew1900]

No need to dose all for reef if you don’t have any corals or coraline algae to consume those elements.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It will not help with algae to keep alk, Ca and Mg more stable.

 

[reefdoink]

Here is my tank parameters:

Alkalinity 5.64 dkh
Calcium 446
Phosphate 0 down from .64 after water change
nitrates 0
Ammonia 0

I doubt my numbers for phos and nitrate are truly this low as I do have some gha.
I'm waiting on a new Salifert Nitrate test kit, as I had to use my leftover API kit to test some of these. My Phosphate test is a Hanna ULR. Also I use Hanna for calc, alk. These numbers are pretty low as I just did a water change to clean my back sump. The low alkalinity is part of why I was wanting to setup a All for Reef pump. I think I am going to get or make a macroalgae reactor to try and balance the nitrates and phosphates. I feel like the swing in these two parameters being stabilized will make water changes less frequent. Lastly hope to only replace trace elements or fix salinity with water changes if need be. Thanks for your input.

 

[Aclman88]

Sounds like you are trying to do a lot on a new tank. My understanding is that you can have barely detectable nutrients and still have algae because the algae is using nutrients. In other words, having algae does not automatically mean you have sufficient nutrients.

Why is your alk low?

I also would wait on the reactor. Is this your first tank? I think at this point it’s also important to let your tank mature a bit.

 

[reefdoink]

This is my first saltwater tank. I think the alk is low because I waited too long to do a water change. It has been about two weeks since last one I think. Today I tested my water again and removed some hair algae. My nitrates were around 10ish with the salifert test I bought. After removing some of the algae I topped off the tank with some fresh saltwater and got the Alk up to 5.8. The phosphates where at .07. When the lights went out I added a little of the All for Reef to try and get the Alk back up. Tomorrow I will test stuff again to make sure stuff is not over range and see what Alk went to.

 

[polyppal]

If you are using a 'reef' specific salt mix, it should balance your Ca and Alk when you do a large scale water change. You probably wont need to start dosing AFR for a little while until the frags are acclimated to the tank and start growing. Even then, on such a small tank you'll want to start out real slow with it until you find a balance between what the corals are consuming and what your replenishing.

The algae issues are likely just happening because its a newer tank still balancing out. You could try an algae-eating bacteria like Microbacter Clean, or cut your light schedule down until you are at the point of adding corals. Small amount of GFO would also quickly take care of the phosphates, but you'll want to monitor it since it can strip all the Po4 quickly

 

[reefdoink]

I already use Microbacter clean after water changes. My light schedule is on for 9 hours and 30 minutes. And Three hours of that is the moon light phase. I'm not planning on dosing AFR long term just yet. But since my parameters where a little wonky I decided to play with it a bit. Normally I do a 10% water change every week unless p04 and n03 are really low. My main focus here is getting the tank balanced and more stable. I realize that it is new and takes time. From my understanding doing a macro algae reactor can help balance the po4, n03 and ph. So my thinking is that if I run the reactor for a few hours and test to get my n03 and po4 readings I can setup a timer to keep the two more balanced. After doing this the gha or bryopsis which ever you have should slow and die out.

 

[polyppal]

Well the algae reactor is a nutrient export device, which would work but it seems like overkill on a 20g when so much of the nutrient export could be done with water changes... But yeah any of those nutrient export methods would work

I would cut the lights way down if theres no coral in the tank. The fish would be fine with just ambient room lighting, and if you want to look at the tank under lights when your home, I would run them just for that period. If you use mobius with your radion, you can turn the intensity way down (to like 10-20%) which will help stop fueling the algae too

 

[reefdoink]

 

[Reef.]

Here is my tank parameters:

Alkalinity 5.64 dkh
Calcium 446
Phosphate 0 down from .64 after water change
nitrates 0
Ammonia 0

I doubt my numbers for phos and nitrate are truly this low as I do have some gha.
I'm waiting on a new Salifert Nitrate test kit, as I had to use my leftover API kit to test some of these. My Phosphate test is a Hanna ULR. Also I use Hanna for calc, alk. These numbers are pretty low as I just did a water change to clean my back sump. The low alkalinity is part of why I was wanting to setup a All for Reef pump. I think I am going to get or make a macroalgae reactor to try and balance the nitrates and phosphates. I feel like the swing in these two parameters being stabilized will make water changes less frequent. Lastly hope to only replace trace elements or fix salinity with water changes if need be. Thanks for your input.

As you say your PO4 is unlikely to be zero, next to impossible to have a 0.64 reading then to be zero after a water change.

I would concentrated on the basics before adding a doser.

If you have algae, your reading will seem low as the algae feed on the PO4 and nitrate, so it looks to be low when really it’s high.

 

[Deep]

If there is no coralline or corals to consume the Alk, but the Alk is still low , that means it was low even in your freshly mixed salt water. Which means your salinity could be low. Have you measured salinity ?

 

[reefdoink]

Yes it is at 33.