Need some help understanding AllForReef!

[Goose13]

I’ve been dosing Red Sea’s Foundation ABC (Alk, Cal, Mag) for about a year and a half on my system (40-gallon breeder with a 20-gallon sump). Everything’s going fine, no major issues or complaints. I have heard really good things about All-For-Reef, so I think I would like to give it a try. However, I need some help understanding how it will work. My tank currently doses about 11.8 ml/day in alkalinity and only about 4.5 ml of calcium. How would I make up the deficit? I’m sure there is something I’m missing…

Any advice or knowledge anyone could provide would be great. Thank you!

 

[tzabor10]

You dose AFR and then use another dosing head to pump in the deficient parameter. Looks like you might want to try dosing supplemental kH

 

[happyhourhero]

It takes a couple of days for afr so I would start low > test > adjust manually to keep stable with what you were previously dosing > increase or decrease afr > repeat until you are stable.

 

[Formulator]

Alkalinity and calcium should be consumed equally in your tank when using an appropriately designed 2-part. One reason you might perceive the need to dose less calcium is because the amount of Alk you are dosing is so very small, you won’t notice the calcium uptake, but I would guess over the period of a few months, in the absence of water changes you would notice a deficit of calcium the way you are dosing. I would suggest you just dose the AFR per the instructions, using your Alk demand to calculate the AFR dose. Continue testing and I bet you are surprised to see your calcium stay on target.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I would not go into it assuming there is any deficit. The Red Sea product is not designed for 1:1 dosing and calcium will always be less with it. AFR has no such issue.

 

[Formulator]

I would not go into it assuming there is any deficit. The Red Sea product is not designed for 1:1 dosing and calcium will always be less with it. AFR has no such issue.

Always learning something from you, Randy. I guess I just assumed all commercial 2-parts were designed for 1:1 dosing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Always learning something from you, Randy. I guess I just assumed all commercial 2-parts were designed for 1:1 dosing.

They should be. Hard to see why they wouldn’t.