Tropic Marin All for Reef.

[Brainwave]

Hi everybody. I was thinking of using Tropic Marin's All for Reef for my major and minor trace elements in my DT. Thoughts?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Welcome to reef2Reef!

Its a fine choice in many scenarios.

Pros:
very easy manual dosing


Cons
It's more expensive than other options.
may require occasional independent addition of alk or calcium.
It is not trivial to automate the dosing based on alk levels, but that is not the way most people use it.
pH effect is a neutral to lowering (identical to dosing bicarbonate for alk)

 

[Evil1]

I have been using it for a year now. Great product in my opinion. Just tested last night and my parameters were exactly where I wanted them. As Randy said more expensive then other options but once you dial it in it takes out the guess work and keeps paraystable. Key is to have your parameters where you want them using the products you use. Then start AFR dosing. Follow the directions and you can’t go wrong.

 

[Troylee]

Welcome to reef2Reef!

Its a fine choice in many scenarios.

Pros:
very easy manual dosing


Cons
It's more expensive than other options.
may require occasional independent addition of alk or calcium.
It is not trivial to automate the dosing based on alk levels, but that is not the way most people use it.
pH effect is a neutral to lowering (identical to dosing bicarbonate for alk)

With that being said I’ve found topping off with kalk and dosing 80ml of all for reef daily “on a doser” to my tank is the sweet spot! My alk is only varying .9.5 to 9.7

 

[Borat]

Hi everybody. I was thinking of using Tropic Marin's All for Reef for my major and minor trace elements in my DT. Thoughts?

Whats your alk consumption per day?

 

[BanZI29]

I have been using it for 2 years now and my tank loves it. my alk sits at 11, I do have to dose a bit of calcium but thats only because I have all LPS. I buy the powered version. alot cheaper.

 

[MrGisonni]

Love it. And as Randy mentioned as one of the cons above, I have needed to dose some Alk independently. I use a tiny bit of Balling Part B. There is a minor carbon dosing effect also that is nice.

 

[The Opinionated Reefer]

I found it pretty trivial to automate the dose, how's it any different from dosing two part in that regard? If you see your alk trending down increase the dose if its trending up decrease it. Keep an eye on calcium levels over time and adjust accordingly

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I found it pretty trivial to automate the dose, how's it any different from dosing two part in that regard? If you see your alk trending down increase the dose if its trending up decrease it. Keep an eye on calcium levels over time and adjust accordingly

Your procedure does not sound like automated dosing, but manual dosing by dosing pump that you control.

Automated dosing doses based on automated alk measurements tied directly to a a dosing pump.

The issue Depends on what you do and how your automation responds, but if it doses to maintain alk, you may way overshoot because the product has no detectable alk when first dosed.

So some systems might say, more more more when in fact, once the formate that was already added is actually converted into detectable alk, it may be much higher than you want.

A two part has immediately detectable alk, so cannot have that problem.

 

[Brainwave]

Whats your alk consumption per day?

I supplement the 50 ML of all for reef

I have been using it for 2 years now and my tank loves it. my alk sits at 11, I do have to dose a bit of calcium but thats only because I have all LPS. I buy the powered version. alot cheaper.

I use the powdered version also.

Whats your alk consumption per day?

daily with an extra 10 ML of red sea alkalinity. My KH is 9.5.

 

[Pistondog]

Using it for 6 months after triton for 5 years. Easier, but you must test weekly to bring alk or calcium to desired levels. Use something else to adjust alk (baking soda) or esv part b for calcium independently.
Also dose a little Naoh for alk daily.

 

[ovicez2004]

Hello,

Does anybody know how much AFR shoud I dose? I have a 73 liter water volume, a 0.5 Alk consumption weekly. If I dose like instructed on the product, my alk goes sky high. Thank you in advance!

 

[Evil1]

How much are you dosing daily?

 

[jhadaway]

I've been using it for almost 3 years on 2 tanks. Great stuff. If you buy the big powder it will last a good while. I have to add a little Mag every few months to get my numbers back up. Otherwise I dose it 8x throughout the day.

 

[MrGisonni]

My aquarium is 113 l, 30 gallons with a sump mixed reef tank. It is packed with corals. I use 6.3 ml of All for Reef dosed over four times during the day. I would start your dosing schedule about 3 ml daily and increase it slightly as needed until alkalinity is stable between 8 and 9

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hello,

Does anybody know how much AFR shoud I dose? I have a 73 liter water volume, a 0.5 Alk consumption weekly. If I dose like instructed on the product, my alk goes sky high. Thank you in advance!

The dose will be very low. I'd start with 1 mL per day and adjust up or down from there after a week or so. That starting dose about matches 0.5 dKH per week.

 

[Borat]

0.5 dKH per week is very very little - generally..

 

[ovicez2004]

Thank you all for your answers. I'll start with 1 ml as per Randy's advice.

 

[ovicez2004]

The dose will be very low. I'd start with 1 mL per day and adjust up or down from there after a week or so. That starting dose about matches 0.5 dKH per week.

For the name of God how do you calculate that dose? On the bottle says that it contains 2800° dkH and that's it. So 1 ml contains 5.6° dkH. But nothing related to the total volume of water from aquarium... BTW, I sucked at chemistry...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

For the name of God how do you calculate that dose? On the bottle says that it contains 2800° dkH and that's it. So 1 ml contains 5.6° dkH. But nothing related to the total volume of water from aquarium... BTW, I sucked at chemistry...

Can you show in a picture or write what the bottle says exactly? Is it dKH per volume?

Tropic Marine uses some nonstandard (incorrect) ways of describing alkalinity that may have translation issues.
Hans Werner gives the concentrations here:

Where can I find the dosing calculator for Tropic Marin All for Reef (AFR)?

I remember it used to be at the bottom of the tropic marin site but it's no longer there. Does anyone know where I can find it again? My alk is currently 6.7 and I want to raise it to 8.0 (tank volume is 95 gallons). The instructions only say to add 5ml per 25 gallons but I have no idea how...

www.reef2reef.com

"The concentrations for All-For-Reef solutions, no matter whether bought as solution or self-prepared from All-For-Reef Powder, are 43000 ppm calcium, Ca, 6000 dKH per liter alkalinity (as alkalinity-precursors), 1900 ppm magnesium, Mg, 780 ppm strontium, Sr and 34 ppm iodine, I."

And BRS gives it here:

All-For-Reef - Powder Mix

Tropic Marin All-For-Reef revolutionized aquarium additive dosing with their original pre-mixed solution, and now this same formula is available in an ultra-concentrated crystalline form that you can easily mix at home, making it more economical for systems of all sizes. All-For-Reef powder...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

We can extract from these that the alkalinity of AFR is 6,000 dKH. We can then use a calculator like this one and the entry for my DIY #1 (alk = 5,300 dKH) and then if you want to be very accurate, correct it by reducing the amount needed by a factor of 6,000/5,300 = 1.13 (13% reduction in dosing amount needed per alk boost).

Reef Chemistry Calculator

The problem from TM arises that they sometimes use words like dKH per 500 mL (or other volume), which is an incorrect use of the units. dKH is already per unit volume, and the dKH in AFR (or anything else) is the same whether it is a volume of 1 mL or a million liters.