All for reef balancing

[JachPot]

Hey all,

I've been dosing All for reef for about a month now, I mixed it following the directions and I've been working on tuning it. I have an Evo 13.5 which I know equates to roughly ~10 gal of actual water. I've been keeping track as I go, but I've noticed I'm a bit unbalanced.

Day 1 test: 2/16/2022
KH: 7.7-8.0
Calc: 330
Magnesium:1260-1290

Day 2 test: 2/20/2022
KH: 8.3-8.6
Calc: 350-360
Magnesium:1260-1290

Water Change

Day 3 test: 2/27/2022
KH: 9.1
Calc: 350
Magnesium: 1230-1260

Day 4 test: 3/08/2022
KH:10.9
Calc: 350
Magnesium: 1140


For clarity, I always test before I dose, so this is the sitting values for about 24 hours after the last dose (say I dose every day at around 4 p.m. and I'm testing the next day at 4 p.m. before that day's dose)


I've been dosing 2.5 ml per the instructions as I know that's a bit more than I need at the moment, this was to build up my values to reach the "ideal values," I planned to then dial it back to probably around 2.0 ml to hold steady and keep testing until my corals demand more.

Now I'm seeing a significant decrease in magnesium while calicum is holding steady and KH is rising. I wanted to drop in and ask now what I should do, before I send my KH over 12.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Any magnesium change over that period is test error. It cannot change more than 1-2 ppm per day.

You are dosing substantially too much (rising alk) and should reduce the dose by a large fraction. I'd stop entirely to let it drop to your target alk, then restart at 25% of your previous dose.

 

[JachPot]

Awesome, I actually had a weird drop (I think it was sticking to the nozzle some and it didn't do a proper drop) of the magnesium indicator in the salifert test kit come out, I should have just retested then.

I'll give that a go and report back, I appreciate the insight. I'll also retest to confirm where my numbers are today. I did actually stop dosing after that 3/8 test so that I could come confirm here what my strategy should be.

Thanks Randy!

 

[JachPot]

Ok @Randy Holmes-Farley I went ahead and quit dosing and did my normal water change and I've retested today.

Day 5 test: 3/14/2022
KH: 10.8
Calc: 340
Magnesium: 1200

Day 6 test: 3/23/2022
KH: 9.6
Calc: 350
Magnesium: 1290

I made a pretty big change with taking off the plastic fluval lid and putting on a mesh lid, so I know I have better gas exchange now and my pH has actually gone up a little bit.


I'm going to start dosing about .6 mL daily and see if I can keep things steady instead of getting rapid kH gains like last time.

 

[Hooz]

With All for Reef, I found it best to start at about half the recommended dose, dose for 3 days straight, test and adjust every 3 days accordingly.

It takes a little longer doing it that way, but you avoid any extreme swings, and you can get things dialed in pretty much spot on.

 

[Falc!]

In smaller tanks I have always found it easier to do good size water changes instead of dosing. Fast swings and easy to over dose. And if things are out of balance then dose just for element that is out of whack. Never been a big fan of all in ones because it’s hard to adjust initially

 

[uhgster1]

For my Fluval 13.5 I dose 5 ml a day with a doser but I have a a pretty robust mixed reef.

My dkh is steady at 9.2 and my biggest issue is zero nitrates so I feed heavily.

 

[JachPot]

For my Fluval 13.5 I dose 5 ml a day with a doser but I have a a pretty robust mixed reef.

My dkh is steady at 9.2 and my biggest issue is zero nitrates so I feed heavily.

I'm also stuck with 0 nitrates, but I'm growing a decent amount of algae right now in the ugly stages. So I know I've got nitrates they're just being used. I feed fairly heavily. I'm not super worried about it at this point, but I might dose some of the nitrate supplements soon.


I think I might have gotten briopsis on a snail.... And I've been growing a decent amount of that. My snails and urchin eat it, but it's a 50/50 battle. I've turned my light cycle down by an hour and I'm monitoring. I only have 1 cerith and 2 nassarius for my sandbed so I'm probably going to bump those numbers up.


What's your CUC look like? That's a pretty clean tank

 

[JachPot]

With All for Reef, I found it best to start at about half the recommended dose, dose for 3 days straight, test and adjust every 3 days accordingly.

It takes a little longer doing it that way, but you avoid any extreme swings, and you can get things dialed in pretty much spot on.

That's been my plan, I just let the KH get uncomfortably high. I'm going to do .6 ml for 3 days and recheck. If it is still rising I might just do .6 every other day and check at the end of 6 days, until my corals use more up.


I just changed LED to a much better and stronger LED so I'm still in that acclimation phase. I know I have to let the corals settle back in before I see any growth again there. Their colors are already 10x better though