calling all AFR users

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

thanks randy! im not trying to argue and im sure youre right, but then what is the point of AFR if you have to keep dosing other things separately? just trying to understand

The issue is that no additive system can know the exact ratios of different elements used in different tanks, so there is always some variability.

With AFR and calcium, the deviation is small.

With AFR and magnesium the error can be relatively larger as a percentage of the magnesium need, although magnesium is used in quite low amounts so any overage or underage takes a long time to become a problem, and may never do so if there are water changes.

The same is true for AFR and trace elements, although it seems that most trace elements have a very wide range of acceptability. Take an example of a tank with a lot of macroalgae in a refugium and not a lot of calcifying corals. AFR dose will be low even if the macroalgae uses up a lot of iron and manganese. So I dose extra of those.

 

[Troylee]

thanks randy! im not trying to argue and im sure youre right, but then what is the point of AFR if you have to keep dosing other things separately? just trying to understand

You don’t! It’s a stand alone product.. I use kalk to cut costs because I’d be dosing 500ml daily in my tank lol. people choose to dose other stuff like alk for a ph benefit but you don’t have too! All for reef is a single dosing product.

 

[BryanM]

That is not how I recommend using it. I know TM does, but I think that can lead to problems with the lack of precision and accuracy in calcium testing. I think dosing based on alk is much better.

Unfortunately after over a year of dosing based on ALK my calcium was up to 560 via ICP.

I do agree calc testing is awful, but it is the way the product is supposed to be used after talking with TM support about this.

This is unfortunate because just about everything else in the tank was spot on except the usual suspects, manganese and iodine.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Unfortunately after over a year of dosing based on ALK my calcium was up to 560 via ICP.

I do agree calc testing is awful, but it is the way the product is supposed to be used after talking with TM support about this.

This is unfortunate because just about everything else in the tank was spot on except the usual suspects, manganese and iodine.

As I always note, I disagree with TM about this.

There's no apparent drawback to that level of calcium, is there?

Are you doing water changes? What mix?

 

[smitten with ocean life]

You don’t! It’s a stand alone product.. I use kalk to cut costs because I’d be dosing 500ml daily in my tank lol. people choose to dose other stuff like alk for a ph benefit but you don’t have too! All for reef is a single dosing product.

interesting. so if you had my numbers, what would you do?

 

[BryanM]

As I always note, I disagree with TM about this.

There's no apparent drawback to that level of calcium, is there?

Are you doing water changes? What mix?

TM Reef Pro salt, but I do not do water changes. Previous ICP results 6months prior was 462.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

TM Reef Pro salt, but I do not do water changes. Previous ICP results 6months prior was 462.

OK, so I agree that calcium will slowly rise and eventually it will be too high without water changes if you use it to maintain alk. That's a drawback to kalk and AFR.

I'd personally still dose by alk, and make adjustments as needed, since alk may fluctuate too much if you make rapid adjustments based on calcium.

 

[Freenow54]

OK, so I agree that calcium will slowly rise and eventually it will be too high without water changes if you use it to maintain alk. That's a drawback to kalk and AFR.

I'd personally still dose by alk, and make adjustments as needed, since alk may fluctuate too much if you make rapid adjustments based on calcium.

Thank You

 

[56longroof]

I dose 100ml in my sps heavy 150 gallon. But I also dose half strength kalk via ATO. I did this to boost ph. AFR was doing nothing for that.

 

[tgrick]

30ml daily in my 110g. Alk never drifts from 8. I am starting to dos trace elements though.. A- and K+

AFR has all those trace elements. I would not dose A- and K elements while dosing AFR.

 

[rishma]

I’ve been using AFR for 4+ years and kalkwasser for 30 years. I’ve always adjusted dosage based on alkalinity and always observed calcium increasing over time.

The highest calcium level I have recently hit, confirmed with ICP, was 598. The corals did not seem to notice. That was late 2023. With water changes it has come down to 469 per my recent ICP. I observe no difference in the corals. I am sure there is an upper limit on calcium, but I have not found it.

Randy has covered the reasons well. Dosing based on alkalinity is the only way I’ll ever do it.

 

[smitten with ocean life]

then what would you do if your cal levels were too low?

 

[areefer01]

then what would you do if your cal levels were too low?

What is too low? If you trust the results then manually adjust. It really is that simple. I got the impression earlier that you are dosing multiple products that overlap on alkalinity but maybe you got that sorted out now.

Tropic Marin instructions give a pretty decent flowchart. Use whatever product you want to make the manual corrections.

As RHF noted, and others, I also use alkalinity as my guide with AFR. Just easier.

Instructions:

Tropic Marin | Aquarium | Produktinformationen

Tropic Mairn - The aquatic life science company. Wir stellen hochwertige Salze, Additive und Wassertests vorwiegend für Meerwasseraquarien her. Korallen, Fische und Wirbellose in Ihrem Aquarium fühlen sich mit unseren Produkten wohl.

www.tropic-marin-smartinfo.com

 

[rishma]

then what would you do if your cal levels were too low?

Calcium will not get low when I am dosing kalkwasser or all-for-reef to keep alkalinity stable.

In a reef tank, alkalinity and calcium are consumed by calcification in predictable proportions. For each 2.8 dKH consumed and 18 to <20 ppm Ca is consumed.

Kalkwasser and All-for-Reef both supply 2.8 dKH and 20ppm calcium. This means they are supplying excess calcium, up to about 110% of what is consumed.

So, calcium will go up, not down over time as long as I maintain alkalinity.

If I somehow created a low calcium condition by dosing only alkalinity or using a low calcium salt mix, I’d correct it with calcium chloride.

But I know my calcium will not get low if I maintain alkalinity with kalk and/or AFR so I don’t test for it except an occasional ICP.

 

[Jamie9]

Does low pH become a problem for people when dosing just AFR and doing regular water changes? Assuming a base RODI pH of 8.0 and say, 10% weekly water changes...is AFR likely to lower pH to the point it needs to be addressed via some additive? (Let's assume average oxygenation and lighting schedule for the sake of pondering this one).

 

[rishma]

Does low pH become a problem for people when dosing just AFR and doing regular water changes? Assuming a base RODI pH of 8.0 and say, 10% weekly water changes...is AFR likely to lower pH to the point it needs to be addressed via some additive? (Let's assume average oxygenation and lighting schedule for the sake of pondering this one).

Water changes are not much of a factor in tank pH. The biggest factor impacting pH for most tanks will be indoor CO2. AFR has a small carbon dosing effect, which can lower pH, but in practice the pH is dominated by the CO2/aeration. In my tank you cannot see any pH impact from the AFR dose.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If somehow calcium actually got low (I agree that kalk and AFR cannot cause that), then a simple correction with calcium chloride seems warranted. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Does low pH become a problem for people when dosing just AFR and doing regular water changes? Assuming a base RODI pH of 8.0 and say, 10% weekly water changes...is AFR likely to lower pH to the point it needs to be addressed via some additive? (Let's assume average oxygenation and lighting schedule for the sake of pondering this one).

The pH lowering is quite small, and I recommend dosing during the mid morning anyway (both O2 and pH are on the rise), so the nightly pH low should not be an issue.

 

[Troylee]

interesting. so if you had my numbers, what would you do?

I’d dose it and get it up to the alk level you want and that’s the Maintence dose you follow after that

 

[Luminous74]

Test with AFR – continuous release of alkalinity and speed of biological processing

Old setting:
Dosing over 24 hours every two hours, starting at midnight.
Total amount: 13 ml per day

Measured values over several months (very stable):

07:30 → KH 7.55
19:30 → KH 7.60
(Hanna HI772, measurements repeatedly reproducible)
fluctuation: ~0.05–0.10 dKH

New setting:

11:00 → 3 ml
14:00 → 3 ml
17:00 → 3 ml
19:00 → 4 ml

Measurements after the adjustment:

Last measurement before adjustment (19:30): 7.54 dKH
Measurement 24 h after adjustment (19:30): 7.80 dKH
Measurement 01:00: 7.70 dKH
Measurement 07:30: 7.50 dKH
Measurement 19:30: 7.80 dKH
Measurement 20:30: 7.70 dKH

fluctuation morning/evening: ~0.30 dKH
For comparison: former dosing every 2 hours: ~0.10 dKH

Reference value:
5 ml AFR correspond to an alkalinity increase of approx. 0.28 dKH.

The daily fluctuation of 0.3 dKH therefore does not quite correspond to half of the total daily dose
(13 ml = approx. 0.73 dKH).

Interpretation

AFR is processed in my tank significantly faster than I had assumed.
Already one hour after the last dose, the alkalinity value begins to noticeably drop again.
A single large bolus dose would probably increase the fluctuations even more.
The fluctuations are not critical, but clearly larger than before.

My intention was to test whether AFR is released continuously in my tank.
If that were the case, I would have expected a flatter alkalinity curve.

However, the measurements show:
In my tank (biology, consumption, bacterial activity), AFR is processed very quickly – within just a few hours.

I could not detect any effects on pH:
The value remained unchanged – morning 8.1, evening 8.4.
My pH measurement is reproducible, but its accuracy is probably not beyond all doubt.

Since I want to keep alkalinity fluctuations as small as possible,
I will switch back to dosing every two hours.