Recommendations on switching to AFR?

[GardenofZoas20]

Hoping for recommendations on switching to All For Reef. Tank is 3 year old 100.3 stable mixed reef (mostly soft and LPS). I maintain KH with soda carbonate in the ATO and manually dose calcuim, magnesium, and trace elements (TM A- and K+). Testing is weekly, ICP every 6 months. Religious 15% water changes weekly. With the coral growth the dosing amounts are increasing. I am wanting to set up automated dosing and I see 2 options:
1. Start with small doses of AFR (far below recommended amounts), increase testing 2X week. Taper off soda carbonate, calcuim, and magnesium as the AFR increase permits. Seems easiest/best solution long term, just concerned on the risks of the change.
2. Just automatically dose what I am dosing manually (soda carbonate via ATO, calcium, magnesium, A-, K+ via doser).
I don’t want to crash this tank and looking for feedback on anyone’s experience on switching to AFR.
Current target parameters:
KH - 9
Calcium - 450
Magnesium - 1450
Nitrate - 8
Phosphate - .1-.15

 

[KrisReef]

It's been almost 24 hours and no one has replied?
I have a calcium reactor and if I didn't I would have a dosing pump for stuff I wanted to add besides CA/Alk.

Note, Randy RHF just posted a thread on here stating that he does not see any reason to measure MG if you are doing regular water changes. The uptake is generally lower than the amount replaced with water changes.

You picked a busy sales weekend and the rest of the Board is busy spending all the money Granny gave them this year at the Feast at her house.

 

[ReeferZ1227]

I do water changes 10% once or twice a month at best, sometimes less. If youre doing 15% a week, i believe your approach is an extremely economically inefficient route and would reconsider. I'll offer you a third option, which is my approach:

I dose 140mL saturated kalkwater an hour in addition to 12mL of AFR 4x daily into a 125 gallon. I mix blue bucket and coral pro red sea salt mixes (30%/70%) for my water changes, as the alk is high on coral pro but i like the elevated elements. I do the water change for dilution and "rebalance" purposes, as well as trace. I then periodically adjust MG and recently K as needed typically quarterly. Obviously your doses will vary based on uptake, but the methodology would remain the same.

I never understood dosing calcium and alk separately as kalk is just too dang simple and I never have to adjust one or the other. So kalk may be another option to reduce your quantity of things to dose.

I have been running this approach with great results both, economically and in SPS growth. AFR IMO is more for the no water change crowd or small tanks. I like my hybrid method, but would choose option 1 of your listed options.

The idea of 5 different things dosing, gives me more paranoia than just 2 and some manual dosing here and there.

First post on R2R, so heres a few pics: