Dosing solutions

Evensong

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Dosage:

Start with a daily dose of 5 ml of Tropic Marin® All-For-Reef per 100 liters (26 US-gal) of aquarium system volume. Increase the daily dosage weekly by 2.5 ml per 100 l (26 US-gal) aquarium volume until you reach constant alkalinity and calcium concentrations.

Once the dosage is established, and the system parameters are stable, measuring either calcium or alkalinity, on a regular basis will monitor your systems changes and needed dosage adjustments. The corresponding parameter only needs to be monitored periodically.
If you scroll all the way down to the calculator, it tells you that this "minimum" dose of 5mL per 100L equates to an increase of 2ppm Ca and 0.28 dKH alkalinity.

For a lightly stocked reef like mine (and probably OP's), I only need about 60% of that, so 3mL per day per 100L.
 

Euphylliaphyle

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If you scroll all the way down to the calculator, it tells you that this "minimum" dose of 5mL per 100L equates to an increase of 2ppm Ca and 0.28 dKH alkalinity.

For a lightly stocked reef like mine (and probably OP's), I only need about 60% of that, so 3mL per day per 100L.
Once my water changes couldn't keep up (based on Alk tests) I started with 2.5 ml dose in 32 gallons/ 121 liters of water (about 40% recommended dose). That was enough for a couple of months. I'm probably 6 months from when I started AFR and just last week bumped it up for the third time. I'm just now dosing 4 ml/121 liters.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Randy, how did you determine how much to dose?

Since my tank was new, I started with quite a low dose and adjusted it weekly based on the measured alk in relation to my target alk.

I still check and adjust it every couple of weeks based on alk only.

If you k ow your alk demand, we can devise a dose that matches it, it it is not necessary to do it that way.
 
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DmitryB

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Since my tank was new, I started with quite a low dose and adjusted it weekly based on the measured alk in relation to my target alk.

I still check and adjust it every couple of weeks based on alk only.

If you k ow your alk demand, we can devise a dose that matches it, it it is not necessary to do it that way.
Perfect, thanks! Currently the tanks is newly set up. IM 40, no livestock, but it will be arriving (corals and fish) in a few weeks. IM's custom caddy arrives with two baggies of carbon and GFO. I placed all the bags into the caddy. Probably too much, at the very least too much GFO? (But boy did the water clear up fast since before yesterday I was not running any chemical filtration on it at all!)
 

slingfox

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Seems like bad idea to start using GFO from the get go with zero livestock. The only circumstance I could see that making sense if is you used ocean live rock and you are seeing high phosphates in the water.
 
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DmitryB

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Have you determined phosphate is high to need GFO?
I have a confession to make: I didn't measure it when I put the baggies in. I just assumed it was needed because it came with the custom caddie. That was dumb! But I measured it now. Hana read it as 0.9. Which I think is as high as Hana goes. I did a RedSea version with color matching and that was about 0.6.

The rocks there are almost entirely ocean rock, though they came from an LFS, not direct from ocean. There are a few small pieces that came directly from Gulf Live Rock. And the sand (25 lbs) is fully from the ocean. Plus I added a packet of that ocean mud from GLF as well. Could all that be raising Phosphates in an unstocked tank?
 

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