Tropic Marine All-For-Reef and nutrient issues

Do you struggle to keep your nutrients up while dosing AFR?

  • Yes

    Votes: 13 76.5%
  • No

    Votes: 4 23.5%

  • Total voters
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Acros

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I am having a hard time keeping my nutrients up while dosing Tropic Marine All-For-Reef (AFR). I really like the convenience of having to dose only one supplement, however now I dose NeoNitro and NeoPhos on top of AFR.

Do you struggle to keep your nutrients up while dosing AFR? Please share your experience with AFR
 

LuizW13

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I read somewhere here that AFR has some carbon dosing elements because of the type of calcium or something they use, I don't know. I think you can find what I'm talking about if you search the forum for AFR.
 

encrustingacro

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Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t AFR used to keep nutrients down? I could be wrong but I thought it was similar to Nopox
No, All For Reef is used as a one part solution to dose calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, and trace elements.
 

Stoney

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AFR/carbocalcium is calcium formate so it is technically carbon dosing. I recently switched a tank away from carbocalcium and nutrients rose pretty sharply. I now need to use phosguard to keep P in check. Havent figured out a solution for N, which settled at 20ppm. I used to dose sodium nitrate just to keep N detectable and around 2.5ppm.
 
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Acros

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It appears that I have to dose AFR, Nitrate, and Phosphate. Are there any multi-part dosing programs that dose alk, cal, mag, keep ionic balance, and dose trace elements?
 

Cbones1979

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Just to add, using all for reef and the tip of my dosing tube had a hard dry substance on it. It was like rock candy. I’m guessing some drip from the tube dried? Not sure if it clogged it or not.
 

Oldreefer44

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Up until recently I used AFR on my 180. Even at their recommended dosing levels, I had to dose an extra 100ml of CA and Alk per day to keep them at desired levels. All other trace elements stayed within desired parameters. When AFR became hard to get I switched to Reef Pro and found that I still had to dose roughly the same amount of Alk and Ca. Also, there was no visible difference in coral color and growth rate. At some point will have to analyze which is more cost effective.
 

thatmanMIKEson

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Just to add, using all for reef and the tip of my dosing tube had a hard dry substance on it. It was like rock candy. I’m guessing some drip from the tube dried? Not sure if it clogged it or not.
This is something I saw somewhere on here, but I have been doing it for about a week and it really helps with AFR. (Putting 10ml syringe tube on dosing tip under water)
 

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Acros

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Update: The tank is about 4 months old and past a Dino outbreak. My nutrients are stable now and all for reef does not affect them anymore. I upped my all for reef dose by 5x and still has not observed any effect.
 

Rubber Ducky

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Hmmm, I've been dosing with AFR for about 5 months now,and everything remains stable, except my Magnesium and my calcium drops not long after my weekly water changes...ive been having to dose those seperate to keep them close to better levels...
 

Lyss

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Hmmm, I've been dosing with AFR for about 5 months now,and everything remains stable, except my Magnesium and my calcium drops not long after my weekly water changes...ive been having to dose those seperate to keep them close to better levels...
I had this issue, too -- having to dose extra Cal and mag. I was using Coral Pro salt and decided to drop my alk and switch to a lower alk salt, and so far that seems to have fixed the problem. It's only been about three weeks so not sure if this will change, but since I switched salt I have only needed to dose AFR and not extra Cal and Mag each week between water changes.
 
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Acros

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Final update:
I used AFR for 1.5 years and always struggled with keeping detectable nutrients. Nitrates stayed at 0.0ppm for the entire duration. If I dose nitrates, it will stay at dosed levels for a few days before returning to 0.0ppm. On the positive side, phosphates stayed below 0.08ppm.

Ever since switching to ESV B-Ionic earlier this year, I have ~1.0ppm nitrates with regular feeding. However, I have to run a GFO reactor to keep phosphates under 0.08ppm. My acors look significantly better with much deeper coloration now. With AFR, everything looked a little pale. I will use AFR if I have a future tank that naturally stays at elevated nutrient levels. It is a no-go for me when dealing with a tank that stays at low nutrient levels.
 

LiquidSpace

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Yes, I do and I thought I just wasn’t feeding enough. I have been dosing the max amount of NP Plus and have no uptick in nitrate. Nitrate has been 0.0 with Hanna HR for 4 months now. Phosphate is usually where it needs to be. I’m going to try neo-nitro to see if I can get any nitrate readings.

Thanks for bumping this. It’s really nice to know I’m not alone.

For what it’s worth my tank is thriving.
 
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