Dosing All for Reef input/guidance requested

[jeff60gcube]

3.5 Month old setup.

Coral are a mixed reef. Palys, Zoa, Shroom, Softies.
150G DT with 36G sump


I am going to try red monti and pocillopora for some beginner sps.

I have bought all for reef and a f1 WiFi doser and looking for starting dose advice.

Tank shot for reference

 

[dakoop]

https://www.tropic-marin-smartinfo.com/all-for-reef?lang=en

 

[jeff60gcube]

Thanks for the link, i was aware of their recommendation. What i've gathered though is that everyone seems to have a different dosage rate. So should I start with what Tropic Marin suggest and adjust best of parameters?

 

[dakoop]

Yes, start at the recommended dose and increase from there

 

[Shawnd08]

What is your alk and calcium currently at? Id start with that and determin where you want your alk to be around. I would then start off with a low dose a day like 5ml and watch it for a few days and see if it goes up or down. Continue to do that until your desired levels are reached. Once it starts to drop you can slowly increase the amount then wait a couple of days and see if it goes up. Just watch calcium doesn't go too high.

I have a 100 gallon tank and am currently only dosing 30ml a day. Tanks been running for almost 2 years. And is a mixed reef but mostly sps. I also dose kalk at night so without that I'm sure my dosage would be a little bit more.

 

[Featherweight]

It's hard for people to tell you how much to dose because people dose based off tanks consumption.

The idea behind all for reef is use other methods to get your parameters in ideal zone... Then afr to keep them there
For me that's ALK 8 to 9
Calcium 400 to 460
If I want to know if I need to change my dose, I track consumption of alk, then test calcium occasionally just to make sure it's not trending up too fast.
Measure ALK at a time today. Then measure ALK at same time tomorrow. That's how much your tank consumes daily.
I use kalk with all for reef. The kalk does well to handle the majority of my daily ALK consumption. But the fresh water only evaporates so fast. I add a quarter of the recommended dose of afr at this point, because I only need to make up like .2ish ALK per day that my kalkwasser can't handle.

So first, let the gurus know your ALK consumption as well as your actual water volume and target levels. From there you will get solutions more specific to you

 

[Dragen Fiend]

First and foremost. Get your parameters to the desired levels prior to using AFR. Dosing kalkwasser and magnesium works best for immediate and faster results. I like keeping 2 part and AFR on hand.

After that its trial and error to get the desired dose. I dose around 5ml right now. LPS/softies. 17G total water.

I test every day same time. If its dropping after dosing. I just up it. If its raising I lower it. Usually by 1ml increments.

 

[jeff60gcube]

7.3 was my ALK reading this AM upon lights turning on. I will check the ALK tomorrow at the same time.

 

[rishma]

7.3 was my ALK reading this AM upon lights turning on. I will check the ALK tomorrow at the same time.

It’s ok to start with a small daily dose and test. If your alkalinity is going up after a few tests, you’ll reduce your dose. If it’s going down, you’ll increase your dose.

Keep in mind that it takes 24-48 hrs to see the full alkalinity from an AFR dose. I suggest trying an initial daily dose and getting a trend of 3 tests over a week or so before making an adjustment. I like to use 3 tests so that a little test inaccuracy doesn’t fool me. This is especially important in low demand tanks and/or when tests are close together in time.

In your tank, every 10ml of AFR will add about 0.1 dKH. You don’t have a ton of coral so I’d start with 10ml or 20ml per day and see what happens.

 

[exnisstech]

As most have mentioned it depends on your consumption. Your tank is not heavily stocked and may not even need dosing unless your not doing WCs. This tank is 285g but not heavily stocked and I'm able to keep alk mid 8 dkH with just 10% weekly WCs using regular IO salt

My acro tank gets AFR currently at 30ml a day to keep alk mid 8 dkH. I have to tweak the dosage occasionally as consumption increases or decreases. Tank is 65g TV and has been on AFR for over a year now. I do minimal WCs of 2-4g every 7-10 days so I can vacuum detritus.

I didn't see it mentioned but AFR can't be tested right away. It needs 24-48 hrs before it will show up on a test.

 

[BryanM]

Yeah, right now in your tank I cannot imagine it using much alk, just not a lot in there yet.

People generally test every day for a week, same time of day, to chart their alk usage, and then calculate how much they need to dose to stabilize it.

 

[jeff60gcube]

Thanks for all the input, the low 7 alk range I’ve been seeing is what made me bring this up. I appreciate all the input from everyone

 

[Reef.]

Thanks for the link, i was aware of their recommendation. What i've gathered though is that everyone seems to have a different dosage rate. So should I start with what Tropic Marin suggest and adjust best of parameters?

No you get your parameters right here you want them then add AFR to keep them there, once your parameters are where you want them, treat alk then again 24 hours later, the amount of alk used in that 24 hours is what you base your dose on and that should get your parameters back to their starting point.

 

[exnisstech]

Thanks for all the input, the low 7 alk range I’ve been seeing is what made me bring this up. I appreciate all the input from everyone

7ish isn't terrible. This tank was 5.5 at last test (not a typo) and livestock have no complaints. I don't advice this and didn't even know it because its a spare tank in my basement that I kind of just let run and keep topped off. I'm going to bring it up but just wanted to post that alk doesn't need to be as high as many people think. Once you start chasing growth and such higher alk can help but on a young tank sometimes I think less is more at least until the tank matures and settles into a natural state which is different for each tank.

 

[BriDroid]

Like others have said, watch your alk for a few days and see if you need to dose. I didn’t need to until I loaded my tank with corals, and even then I didn’t start until I started seeing growth. That’s when my alk and calcium started to drop.

7dKH is natural sea water, so it’s not bad.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

As folks note, there are many different ways to start dosing AFR, but the most important is to determine if you need any.

If alk is 7.3 dKH, you may not need any, unless you want alk higher.

If you do want alk higher, I'd personally use AFR to get there by a very low daily dose and watch it slowly climb, then adjust the dose up or down, if needed, to stabilize where you want it.

 

[jeff60gcube]

Really appreciate all the advice from everyone! I will continue to monitor before jumping the gun.

 

[Luminous74]

You can consider that 5 ml of AFR increases alkalinity by approximately 0.28 dKH per 26 US gallons. Measure your alkalinity daily and calculate how much you need to dose each day to maintain a stable level. Keep in mind that it takes at least 24 hours for the effect of the initial dose to be reflected in the measurement.