Thinking of changing what I dose to tank .

Tofer

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Right now I’m dosing Red alk ,calc,mag my numbers are mostly stable with minor fluctuations . I have been thinking about switching to tropic marine all for reef . Looking for some pros and cons of the switch.
 

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AFR sure is easy to use, if you buy it in powder form its not expensive to make a large batch, I use it and so does a couple of my friends so far we have no issues with it.
 

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I switched to all for reef from red sea calcium, brs alk, cahetogro, and red sea iodine and potassium (I still dose potassium as well as a little iron). The only downside I face is that the all for reef does not help my low pH.
 

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Why do you want to change?

Dosing separately should give you stable parameters, so wouldn’t change for that reason, if cost and less dosing pumps etc ease of use then I would change over, should keep your parameters stable, just check mag etc , you may have to slightly adjust one of the lvls and dose that separately to keep the 3 parameters stable but that should just be once in awhile.
 
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Why do you want to change?

Dosing separately should give you stable parameters, so wouldn’t change for that reason, if cost and less dosing pumps etc ease of use then I would change over, should keep your parameters stable, just check mag etc , you may have to slightly adjust one of the lvls and dose that separately to keep the 3 parameters stable but that should just be once in awhile.
Its not a stability thing as the tank is stable with some minor fluctuations . My thinking is cutting down to dosing 1 product and cutting cost .
Are you using All For Reef ? Did you switch from a different product and if so did you have issues during the switch ? What are the pros & cons of ALL For Reef
 
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I switched to all for reef from red sea calcium, brs alk, cahetogro, and red sea iodine and potassium (I still dose potassium as well as a little iron). The only downside I face is that the all for reef does not help my low pH.
did you have any issues during the switch ? Did you just finish of the Red Sea products and then start with all for reef at the recommended dosing rate then adjust till you get to your normal levels?
 

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Its not a stability thing as the tank is stable with some minor fluctuations . My thinking is cutting down to dosing 1 product and cutting cost .
Are you using All For Reef ? Did you switch from a different product and if so did you have issues during the switch ? What are the pros & cons of ALL For Reef

I do use AFR not used any other, the only issue if you can call it that is the alk takes a couple of days to take affect and as said the mag might go slightly up or down over time but that is easily corrected, apart from that my tank is very stable with it.
 

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Its not a stability thing as the tank is stable with some minor fluctuations . My thinking is cutting down to dosing 1 product and cutting cost .
Are you using All For Reef ? Did you switch from a different product and if so did you have issues during the switch ? What are the pros & cons of ALL For Reef
FWIW from what I remember when I did some calculations Red Sea 3 Part if you buy in 5L's will be cheaper than all for reef unless you DIY the "AFR" liquid from the powders.

With that being said I still went for AFR because it's a 1 and done. Whether I'm manually dosing or using pumps, it's 1-2 less pumps, or one less task I have to worry about.

With that also being said. I've now almost completely decided to go calcium reactor on my next build as well.....
 
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I do use AFR not used any other, the only issue if you can call it that is the alk takes a couple of days to take affect and as said the mag might go slightly up or down over time but that is easily corrected, apart from that my tank is very stable with it.
Do you use the powder and mix or the remade ?
 

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did you have any issues during the switch ? Did you just finish of the Red Sea products and then start with all for reef at the recommended dosing rate then adjust till you get to your normal levels?


I didn't finish the calcium but I forget about the alk. I just calculated how much to dose based off of my current alk consumption. I did the diy at first and just switched to the powder. Calcium is a steady 490-500ish and alk 9.8 in my tank last time I checked. I may need to dose some magnesium. In total I have dosed about a gallon of all for reef. I also do not do water changes
 

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I'm a big fan of only needing a single dosing pump with AFR. There are many cheaper dosing solution options, though. I'm running a nano, so not much of a concern yet with cost. It can be a little tricky dialing it in and reacting to swings when there's a 2-3 day alk delay. I keep some sodium bicarb around to dose manually in between dosage changes.
 

PeterC99

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I use AFR to supplement my calcium reactor in a high demand aquarium. Used to supplement Kalk but found difficult and inconsistent. AFR has added benefit of consistently dosing trace elements. Very happy with the switch - corals growing well and better color.
 

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You say for cost etc, I just did this calculation for another thread, their tank was 60g, worked out with using the powder at around $140 a year if dosing the max, which would take awhile to fill the tank to a point it needed a max dose of AFR, your tank being half the size, you will be looking at around a cost of $70 a year, and that’s just when you max out, for the foreseeable it’ll be a lot less than that.
 

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Do you use the powder and mix or the remade ?
I would do the DIY but BRS was sold out.

My closest LFS doesn't carry it.

Got the premade liquid.

Also wasn't fully commited yet. But results have been great.

As others have said there's a delay on the Alk, but tank is just fine.
 
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I use AFR to supplement my calcium reactor in a high demand aquarium. Used to supplement Kalk but found difficult and inconsistent. AFR has added benefit of consistently dosing trace elements. Very happy with the switch - corals growing well and better color.
The trace elements are also I saw as an up side to the switch.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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I had trouble getting the saturation level consistent. Probably should have invested in a conductivity probe.

An alternative way to get a constant concentration is to make it less than saturated with a known amount added solid in RO/DI.
 

PeterC99

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An alternative way to get a constant concentration is to make it less than saturated with a known amount added solid in RO/DI.
Randy could explain what you mean by “known amount added solid in RODI”?
 

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