Tropic Marin All for reef dosing calculations

[Straasha]

I am not sure what I am doing wrong with A4R powder. I have 50 gallons total water volume and I have to dose 120 ml a day just to keep the alkalinity at the same level. I mixed exactly 160 grams per liter and still have this issue. Any help?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I am not sure what I am doing wrong with A4R powder. I have 50 gallons total water volume and I have to dose 120 ml a day just to keep the alkalinity at the same level. I mixed exactly 160 grams per liter and still have this issue. Any help?

What is the alkalinity? What do you want it to be?

Can you describe what is in the tank that uses alkalinity and how long you have dosed that amount?

 

[Straasha]

I am trying to keep it around 7.5 to 8.0. I have a large (10 inches wide) acro, two duncans, three hammers, one torch, one octospawn, a bunch of zoas, 5 Florida recordeas, a large elegance, a devil's hand leather, and a Goniopora. I have been dosing this amount for about 3 weeks. I just did my biweekly water 9-gallon change on Sunday (alk 7.2 after change) using HW-Marinemix Reefer Salt mixed to 1.026.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

As I've said before, the only reason to think that dosing formate will work is based on reefer experiences. It's not like dosing ordinary alk additives which are simply chemistry. So things may go wrong in unusual scenarios.

There's nothing wrong with 7 dKH, and especially if the corals are mostly using formate that you do not detect.

If you want alk higher, the two choices seem to be add more AFR and see what happens, or dose some amount of normal alk additive. :)

 

[silvia_10]

Hi!

I have the opposite problem.
I would like to have the alk in 8 and I can't lower it from 10.3. Right now I have a 240l system mixed with sps and lps and I am adding 4ml/day and still can't get it to go down. Any suggestions?

 

[silvia_10]

I have the opposite problem. I would like to have the alk in 8 and I can't lower it from 10.3. Right now I have a 240l system mixed with sps and lps and I am adding 4ml/day and still can't get it to go down. any suggestions?

 

[Reef Jockey]

I have the opposite problem. I would like to have the alk in 8 and I can't lower it from 10.3. Right now I have a 240l system mix

If your CA and MAG are equally remaining at the same level with your Alk proportionally then try lowering your AFR dosage amount. why i say that is because AFR will maintain the big 3 equally. If you want to raise or lower one of those parameters you'll need to do that individually. raising is easier imo.
i have a 13.5g tank and my dosage is 10ml daily and thinking of raising it because my Alk is 7.6, CA is 425, and Mag is 1320. Due to the ratio of those numbers, raising AFR dosage will equally raise all parameters. From my experience
But of course weekly testing needs to be done at a minimum to keep those parameters in check.

 

[silvia_10]

If your CA and MAG are equally remaining at the same level with your Alk proportionally then try lowering your AFR dosage amount. why i say that is because AFR will maintain the big 3 equally. If you want to raise or lower one of those parameters you'll need to do that individually. raising is easier imo.
i have a 13.5g tank and my dosage is 10ml daily and thinking of raising it because my Alk is 7.6, CA is 425, and Mag is 1320. Due to the ratio of those numbers, raising AFR dosage will equally raise all parameters. From my experience
But of course weekly testing needs to be done at a minimum to keep those parameters in check.

Thanks!

 

[mcgoughman]

Remember the dose may not show as alk for a while since the form dosed is not detectable.

Does this mean we should not be concerned about low Alk test results (6 dKH) if the calcium is good (440 ppm)? If so for how long?

I guess we are all learning how this stuff works with all the variables.

 

[air_run]

Does this mean we should not be concerned about low Alk test results (6 dKH) if the calcium is good (440 ppm)? If so for how long?

I guess we are all learning how this stuff works with all the variables.

You should be concerned, somewhat if you want or need a higher alkalinty. At this point (as I was) in the same boat, you can just add an alkalinty supplement in addition to AFR to boost your alkalinity. Eventually it will stabilize. I used Aquaforest KH+ with good results to maintain a higher alkalinity around 7.8 dKH.

 

[mcgoughman]

You should be concerned, somewhat if you want or need a higher alkalinty. At this point (as I was) in the same boat, you can just add an alkalinty supplement in addition to AFR to boost your alkalinity. Eventually it will stabilize. I used Aquaforest KH+ with good results to maintain a higher alkalinity around 7.8 dKH.

Appreciate your input and experience. So do you continuously add the additional alkalinity? Or did you taper off the additional alkalinity resulting in stability with just theA4F?

 

[air_run]

Appreciate your input and experience. So do you continuously add the additional alkalinity? Or did you taper off the additional alkalinity resulting in stability with just theA4F?

I did continue to dose the AF Kh+ as it I found over time (maybe after two months) I needed to dose less as things stabilized. It got to the point where I was only dosing about 4ml a day (54 gallon total system volume). For example, I wanted my alkalinity at 8.0 dKH and everyday when I tested it was 7.9 dKH. When my alk readings started to drop below the 7.9 dKH consistently I just upped my AFR a bit as corals where growing.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Subbed to follow and learn as I just started today dosing AFR to my Nano tank. I took my readings yesterday after I did a 3 gal WC Wednesday evening. I'm kinda testing this out on my 13.5 before my WB shows up at end of the month and I break down the Evo tank. I added 2 ml going off their dosing calculator.

I didn't test calcium as it's been rocking between 420-435 daily for the past 2 weeks.

Tested
dkH 7.8 goal is 9
Mag was 1440 goal 1450
pH in the morning 8.09 and afternoon 8.18 goal 8.3..
Calcium from last test was 428 and like the above said it's been just hanging in where I want it.. goal 430-450 ish

This is what TM says I should dose with what gallons I entered. I've got around 18lbs of life Rock in the tank and water hight in display is around 1/4" from the rim so I'm just entering a guess of 10 gallons.. I'm running a higher flow pump compared to the stock one.

Any input from you all if the calculation is, or looks right?

I'll be testing cal, mag and dkH tomorrow afternoon. That'll be 24 hrs since initial dose.

 

[fishRus]

I'm not understanding that calculation.

It is not hard to determine how much alk and calcium All for Reef adds from their info provided to resellers, even if it is written with some technical problems:

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/all-for-reef-tropic-marin.html
Specifications (per 500 mL)

• Carbonate Hardness Concentration: 2,800 dKH
• Calcium Concentration: 20,000 mg Ca
• Magnesium Concentration: 950 mg Mg

Ignore the technical issues with that statement, one would most credibly interpret it to mean it is 40,000 ppm in calcium and 5600 ppm in alkalinity.

Thus, adding 0.1% of the tank volume boosts alk by 5.6 dKH and calcium by 40 ppm.

You can use this calculator and use the entry for Randy's Recipe #1, then multiply the amount needed for an alk boost by 0.91 and for a calcium boost by 0.93 since it is a little more potent than my two part.

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

I don’t think you should all for reef to adjust your alk because it also adds Calcium and magnesium and Trace elements . I use All For Reef for a one part additive to maintain my tank but I sometime have to adjust my alk with BRS soda ash a small amount works well for a 100 gallon system I might put in 30 ml. For a 20 gal start out with just a few ml

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Lou explains this in his workshop. It's a 45 min talk and explains the tropic Marin balling and AFR and how it all works. Don't pass it up!

 

[fishface NJ]

I have a 40b display tank with a 40b sump. 90% of my corals are SPS. I don't really have room for more.

AFR dose total is 72 mL + BRS alk 21mL I have been using it since AFR came out in liquid form.

kH 7.5 to 7.8 - Salifert
Mg 1420 - Salifert
Cal 450 - Salifert & Red Sea Pro
Nitrates 4 - Hanna
Phosphate 0.01 - Hanna

You dose AFR to keep your MG and Ca at the right level and if you need to dose Alk to make it higher that is the chemical you would add. Don't add AFR to get your Alk to the right level and make your Mg and Ca higher then normal

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Does this mean we should not be concerned about low Alk test results (6 dKH) if the calcium is good (440 ppm)? If so for how long?

I guess we are all learning how this stuff works with all the variables.

A few days initially. Eventually it will catch up.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You dose AFR to keep your MG and Ca at the right level and if you need to dose Alk to make it higher that is the chemical you would add. Don't add AFR to get your Alk to the right level and make your Mg and Ca higher then normal

I agree folks should not raise calcium or magnesium excessively (IMO, that means over 550 ppm calcium or 1450 ppm magnesium), and your suggestion is one possible approach, certainly, but that doesn't always happen. Many folks report a shortfall of magnesium, for example, when using AFR.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I don’t think you should all for reef to adjust your alk because it also adds Calcium and magnesium and Trace elements . I use All For Reef for a one part additive to maintain my tank but I sometime have to adjust my alk with BRS soda ash a small amount works well for a 100 gallon system I might put in 30 ml. For a 20 gal start out with just a few ml

It is certainly true that making any sorts of adjustments with a one part product is tricky and needs caution.

But the impact on calcium and magnesium is small for a typical alk boost. Adding 2 dKH of alk this way boosts calcium less than 20 ppm and magnesium too small to be detected.

The big problem is the reverse. A 50 ppm boost to calcium will boost alk by 7 dKH, and likely is not ever warranted.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

This AFR took it's time to do its thing. Been adding the suggested amount and seen a slight rise in dkH then a slow drop. Also lowered CA down to 390's from the 425 ish that I've been running. So I stopped checking calcium for the time being and been more focused on getting the dkH up to 9. I wasn't seeing the results I was expecting. So I'm going to blame myself on this one and ask the community for some advice.

Tested the calcium this evening and it was at 529 and dkH at 9.8.

Tank inhabitants look normal. So should I stop dosing AFR or just lower my dosage?

I think it nipped me in the butt. First week I was still using 2 ml and after the first week I did a couple days of 5 ml and then the past two days I added 10ml.

So I'm thinking the bacteria didn't fully metabolize the solution and I was going too fast. I'm not even going to test or dose tomorrow and will probably wait until Tuesday to check the levels because me being me I'll stress right out if the numbers go higher and I'm sure they will.

So what does everybody recommend, just let it settle out for a couple 3 days and then go back to the suggested dosage and check every 3 days instead of every 24 hours?

I don't see any precipitation.
Any thoughts?