How to dose all for reef

[mihali]

I ordered all for reef and it just arrived but the instructions to dose are confusing me a bit can I have some help please tank size 36 gal

 

[cdemoss01]

I ordered all for reef and it just arrived but the instructions to dose are confusing me a bit can I have some help please

Ill bump this for you. I have used it before, its pretty good! Hopefully someone will answer your question

 

[mihali]

Do you not know

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I suggest dosing it in an amount necessary to maintain alkalinity.

Do you know the current daily demand for alk?

If not, do you know the current alkalinity?

If not, get an alk kit as the first step.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

This is in regards to the liquid dosing

So, all for reef initial dose is 5ml per 26g of water, which rounds to about 1ml per 5.2g water.
You have a 36g tank, which means you would do 7ml dose on your initial dose of AFR. After your initial dose, I would increase it by about .5ml each day until you get a consistent number you are happy with. Be sure you are testing every single day when doing this, you don’t want to spike your nutrients

Hope this helps!

 

[mihali]

It was 8 on Saturday but haven’t been home since

 

[mihali]

So say I dosed 7.5 ml and it got to my desired level I dose that every day

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So say I dosed 7.5 ml and it got to my desired level I dose that every day

Well, let's slow down.

What is your desired alk target range?

If the current alk is 8 dKH, and your target is 8 dKH (which is pretty typical), then you should not dose any.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

So say I dosed 7.5 ml and it got to my desired level I dose that every day

Listen to @Randy Holmes-Farley he knows what he is talking about when it comes to reefing chemistry

 

[mihali]

I want to aim for 10

 

[mihali]

So what do I actually do

 

[mihali]

So I start with 7 ml then add 0.5 ml every day until I get to 10 dkh and then if I got to like 8 ml to get to 10 dkh I dose that every day

 

[twentyleagues]

So I start with 7 ml then add 0.5 ml every day until I get to 10 dkh and then if I got to like 8 ml to get to 10 dkh I dose that every day

No. You need to know what your tank demand is. You need to test alk daily for a few days to see what the tank uses per day. I am sure Randy will be back with a better explanation. I dont know what the recommended starting dose equates to in actual dkh. If you want 10 dkh technically you should use a 2 part to get the dkh/calcium to your desired level before you start dosing afr. Then test every 24hr for 3 days to get an idea of what the tank uses. Dose back up to your desired level with 2 part and start afr 24hrs later wait 24hrs test and see where you are at rinse a repeat bumping your afr dose until you get that 10dkh 24hrs after the afr dose. I am typically a little lazy on testing you should probably test alk every 3-4 days once you have your daily afr amount "dialed" in, consumption will change as stuff grows so you will need to adjust. I test once a week until I get a low test and then have to adjust and daily test to get back on track. Just ended up doing this this past weekend I typically run 9dkh but on sunday I tested 8.2 dkh so I increased my afr by 5ml and tested monday 8.3 tuesday 8.4. I increased 5 more ml tuesday night I will see where I am at tonight. I should have used 2 part to get back in line but I needed to mix some more and didnt feel like it. Plus slower change is probably a little better.

 

[Dragen Fiend]

I use AFR myself. Test your current dKH prior to dosing. From there there you decide what target you want. In your case its 10dKH and you currently have 8. You should test again prior to dosing. For all you know you dropped again and are working off different numbers. So for your tank size at 36 gallons. (this should be actual water and not what the tank said it could hold). Dosing 7.19ml of AFR should yield a 0.28 dKH increase. You should refrain from increasing more than 1dKH a day (from my understanding). So technically you can dose 35ml per day to jump 1dKH. Some people split that into multiple doses a day.

So lets run through it. I have 36 gallons of actual water. I tested this evening and got 8dKH. I will then wait the following day and retest around the same time. Now my test comes back and its 7.9 dKH. I now know my tank consumes .1dHK per day. You can wait another 24hrs and find an average consumption if you want.

So you now know you have .1dKH consumption. This is what you go off of to daily dose. (this can and will change in the future as your corals grow) Hence dosing requires you test daily or every other day).

So to maintain your current dKH you need to dose 2.5ml give or take.

Now to get my dKH from 8 to 10 I need to dose more to overcome my consumption as well.

I would dose twice a day. So in the morning around 6am I'd do 7.19ml and then at night around 10pm I'd do another 7.19ml. I'd do this over a course of a week to slowly increase to my desired level. once I finally hit my 10dKH. I drop back my dosage to the initial daily of 2.5ml to keep it there.

Then the fun part of test and test again as you find yourself adjusting based off consumption changes.

For most people they tend to use BRS 2 part to get there quicker then go back to AFR for maintaining. To each their own.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So what do I actually do

First, have patience.

Second, 10 dKH is fine, but so is 8 dKH and there’s no emergency rush. Getting there slowly is better than getting there fast.

It behooves you to know what you are dosing, not just accepting some random number.

Adding 7 mL per day will boost alk by 0.3 dKH per day,

I’d start by adding 3 mL per day for a week and see where alk stands after that week.

 

[mihali]

So every time I dose three mil I test alk?

 

[mihali]

Or test all at the end of the week

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So every time I dose three mil I test alk?

That would not hurt, but it is not what I recommended. Test after 1 week.

 

[mihali]

Ok thanks

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You're welcome.

Let us know how it goes. :)