All for Reef and calcium

[Necrodaemus]

When dosing AFR, is the calcium immediately available and detectable or is it slowly released through metabolism like the alkalinity? I ask because I was dosing 6ml to my tank for the past 5 days and started seeing calcium dropping. I increased the dosage to 7.5ml and tested Ca an hour later and it’s still unchanged/slightly lower.

 

[Reef.]

What size tank and what increase were you aiming for?

 

[Necrodaemus]

What size tank and what increase were you aiming for?

25g tank, net volume is about 15g. Parameters I’m trying to maintain: 8 dKH, 420ppm Calcium, 1350 Mag. I tested Calcium 2 days ago and it was 420ppm and this morning it was showing 390ppm…both from Salifert kits. Alk seems to drop to 7.7 when I test it at the same time each night. I can manually increase those parameters with Red Sea Foundation liquids but trying to avoid that as I’m hoping to get the AFR dialed in.

 

[Reef.]

6ml of AFR would hardly be noticeable, alk and cal decrease at about the same rate generally, if you have a lot of growing corals then you may need to add much more than 6ml a day.

You will only notice a calcium increase or decrease over about a week or more, not day by day as most cal test kits are not that precise and also user error.

I would, if you haven’t already, stop dosing for a few days to give the AFR you have already added time to convert to alk then see how much alk your tank uses in 24 hours, then dose the correct amount of AFR.

I would then use alk to determine the correct dose from now on and only test calcium every 2 weeks or monthly, as long as calcium is within a range it’s good, you do not need to get it within say 10mg/l as you would with alk.

Sounds to me you are testing too much.

And yes calcium and mag would show up when added.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

When dosing AFR, is the calcium immediately available and detectable or is it slowly released through metabolism like the alkalinity? I ask because I was dosing 6ml to my tank for the past 5 days and started seeing calcium dropping. I increased the dosage to 7.5ml and tested Ca an hour later and it’s still unchanged/slightly lower.

Yes, it is immediately detectable.

 

[biom]

Calcium in AFR is immediately available for corals / detectable as Randy said.

6 ml of AFR will raise calcium with about 4 ppm in 15 gal water. (only 15 gal water in 25 gal tank?)

If for two days calcium dropped from 420 to 390 even if you were adding 4 ppm this means your tank calcium uptake is about 19 ppm calcium daily. That's a big consumption, your tank should be quite stocked with stony corals. If this is the case then you'll need almost 30 ml of AFR to compensate this consumption. But if you have this big consumption in your tank I'm not sure AFR is your right choice - even from TM they said maximum dose is 25 ml per 26 gal. water.

 

[areefer01]

You can manually adjust if need be. Instructions below from Tropic Marin's page to help guide you.

 

[Necrodaemus]

6ml of AFR would hardly be noticeable, alk and cal decrease at about the same rate generally, if you have a lot of growing corals then you may need to add much more than 6ml a day.

You will only notice a calcium increase or decrease over about a week or more, not day by day as most cal test kits are not that precise and also user error.

I would, if you haven’t already, stop dosing for a few days to give the AFR you have already added time to convert to alk then see how much alk your tank uses in 24 hours, then dose the correct amount of AFR.

I would then use alk to determine the correct dose from now on and only test calcium every 2 weeks or monthly, as long as calcium is within a range it’s good, you do not need to get it within say 10mg/l as you would with alk.

Sounds to me you are testing too much.

And yes calcium and mag would show up when added.

Yes, around 15.5g water volume. The IM 25g lagoon actually only holds around 22g due to thickness of glass and back chambers, and it doesn’t fill to the brim. With equipment (pumps, powerheads, heaters, media in the back, etc) the volume is around 20g without rock or sand. My final net volume is 15.5g. The test showing 390ppm of calcium must have been erroneous as I double checked it a few hours after and it was at 420 still. I’m going to continue the 7.5ml dosage as it’s still maintaining 7.8-8.0 dKH and calcium/mag are remaining unchanged. Ignore this post…it was just me pulling my hair out trying to figure out the dosage due to TM recommending dosing by calcium consumption.

 

[Necrodaemus]

Here is a photo of the tank to give an idea on coral stock. While none of them are large colonies yet, it’s fairly SPS dominant at this point and all of them are showing fast growth.

 

[Reef.]

Yes, around 15.5g water volume. The IM 25g lagoon actually only holds around 22g due to thickness of glass and back chambers, and it doesn’t fill to the brim. With equipment (pumps, powerheads, heaters, media in the back, etc) the volume is around 20g without rock or sand. My final net volume is 15.5g. The test showing 390ppm of calcium must have been erroneous as I double checked it a few hours after and it was at 420 still. I’m going to continue the 7.5ml dosage as it’s still maintaining 7.8-8.0 dKH and calcium/mag are remaining unchanged. Ignore this post…it was just me pulling my hair out trying to figure out the dosage due to TM recommending dosing by calcium consumption.

You quoted the wrong person

Yeah I had a reply from Tropic Marin about them recommending to dose by calcium, their reply was that that recommendation was based on calcium and alkalinity tend to be consumed differently depending if the tank is in Europe vs North America as tanks are generally run differently depending where you live, elements are used at different rates in Europe and North America, so they recommend to use the lower of either calcium or alkalinity to check your dosing, then top up over time if one is lagging behind slightly.

 

[Necrodaemus]

You quoted the wrong person

Yeah I had a reply from Tropic Marin about them recommending to dose by calcium, their reply was that that recommendation was based on calcium and alkalinity tend to be consumed differently depending if the tank is in Europe vs North America as tanks are generally run differently depending where you live, elements are used at different rates in Europe and North America, so they recommend to use the lower of either calcium or alkalinity to check your dosing, then top up over time if one is lagging behind slightly.

Oh crap, my mistake on that . But yeah, I was just going by what TM recommended. I’ll just stick with maintaining alk instead and let the other 2 fall into place. I can always manually adjust the parameters as needed.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Lou Ekus of TM does recommend that calcium is an ok, and possibly preferable way to dose All for Reef, but IMO, alk is better as long as you do not try to measure it too rapidly after dosing.

 

[areefer01]

Lou Ekus of TM does recommend that calcium is an ok, and possibly preferable way to dose All for Reef, but IMO, alk is better as long as you do not try to measure it too rapidly after dosing.

Just follow the dosing instructions posted above. Manually correct if required. As you pointed out ALK lags and new users of TM often overlook or don't know it.

It is a pretty simple product and process to follow.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I personally do not care for those directions, and I would not have written them that way.

I think knowing the alk potency and starting dosing based on alk demand is better.

The max dose is also unnecessarily low.

 

[areefer01]

I personally do not care for those directions, and I would not have written them that way.

I think knowing the alk potency and starting dosing based on alk demand is better.

The max dose is also unnecessarily low.

Edit: removed my comment.

Hope weekend is going well.