All for reef not keeping up.

[Notsolostfish]

My tank of 8 months old. Lps dominant. Alk dropping faster than calcium. My calcium is staying stable. But my alk dropping faster. At first i was dosing 25ml for 150G. But now afr cant keep up with the alk. While calcium. Is pretty stable. What do i do here? Can i dose a dose of red sea alk + afr? Not sure

 

[t5Nitro]

You can supplement 2 part alkalinity or another brand of your choice. I’d use AFR to calcium stability and titrate alkalinity as needed.

25 mL is nothing of a dose on your tank size through.

Edit: agree with below post- I use about 90 ml a day on similar volume.

 

[Troylee]

Up the dose of all reef.. I’m using around 100ml daily now.. don’t worry about cal or mag just watch your alk and those fall in line.

 

[sean151]

Are you dosing anything else in mto the tank? What are your other parameters like? Alk is apart of many biologic reactions and things like dosing certain nitrate formulas will increase calcium relative to Alk consumption.

 

[Kellie in CA]

I have the same problem with AFR. Really high calcium and Alk dropping to 7 (or lower).

 

[areefer01]

Just as an aside:

• How long have you been dosing AFR
• What salt are you using and what do they say the parameters are for a new batch?
• Do those parameters meet your requirements?
• Remember Alk lags a bit due to how it works - meaning adjust a dose do a manual test results for Alk will nto show up right away. May take a couple hours or a day or two. All systems are different as mine took about 48 hours.
• Tropic Marin recommends setting the water chemistry to what you want before starting to dose. So manual adjust using whatever you want. I adjusted using ESV 2 part because that is what I had on hand

Edit: only other thing to add is verify your water tests and test at the same time each day.

 

[twentyleagues]

Instructions on afr state to does 2 part to keep stable. so yes you can and should dose 2 part. But as others have said increase your afr until your alk is stable isnt an issue. Or get your alk up with 2 part (alk part) and increase afr after to keep stable.

 

[gbroadbridge]

My tank of 8 months old. Lps dominant. Alk dropping faster than calcium. My calcium is staying stable. But my alk dropping faster. At first i was dosing 25ml for 150G. But now afr cant keep up with the alk. While calcium. Is pretty stable. What do i do here? Can i dose a dose of red sea alk + afr? Not sure

You should be dosing AFR based on Alk consumption as it is easier to obtain an accurate Alk reading than an accurate Ca reading.

Alk moves much faster than Ca.

Just up the dose.

 

[areefer01]

Instructions on afr state to does 2 part to keep stable. so yes you can and should dose 2 part. But as others have said increase your afr until your alk is stable isnt an issue. Or get your alk up with 2 part (alk part) and increase afr after to keep stable.

Sort of. Get desired levels before starting. Calculate dose. Follow their flow chart, instructions, and manually correct until AFR can maintain on its own. Once it is dialed in one rarely has to manually adjust. Of course all systems are different. Instructions below.

 

[twentyleagues]

Sort of. Get desired levels before starting. Calculate dose. Follow their flow chart, instructions, and manually correct until AFR can maintain on its own. Once it is dialed in one rarely has to manually adjust. Of course all systems are different. Instructions below.

yup

 

[areefer01]

yup

I actually should probably not have quoted you now that I think about it. I was really just trying to get the directions here for reference as I think those of us using it are more or less saying the same thing.

Hopefully that makes sense.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Just agreeing with folks that if AFR is not keeping up with alk, just dose more.

It is slightly overbalanced with a tiny bit too much calcium, so if calcium rises above 550 ppm or so, I’d dose ordinary alk for a bit.

 

[Notsolostfish]

You should be dosing AFR based on Alk consumption as it is easier to obtain an accurate Alk reading than an accurate Ca reading.

Alk moves much faster than Ca.

Just up the dose.

But wouldnt upping my dose. Increase my calcium as well? Im at 455 according to salifert

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

But wouldnt upping my dose. Increase my calcium as well? Im at 455 according to salifert

Not a problem. Even a 3 dKH boost to the current alk will only raise calcium to 476 ppm.

 

[Troylee]

But wouldnt upping my dose. Increase my calcium as well? Im at 455 according to salifert

It might go up a little but it’s not gonna hurt anything unless you get over 550

 

[MrGisonni]

Yeah I agree with some of the other poster. Slowly increase the dose of the AFR. If the problem continues just dose an alkalinity supplement. I dose a few mls of Balling Part B daily.