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AFR not keeping up (2 Viewers)

HouseofStark

HouseofStark

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Hey everyone, wanted to get your guys thoughts on a problem Ive been having. Ive been running All For Reef on my tank for 2 plus years and honestly don't have any complaints. But as of late, not sure if Im not doing something wrong but its no longer maintaining Alk. Ca and Mg are holding steady, but my Alk is constantly tanking. It's a 5-6 year old tank thats well over grown, so maybe its just a large Alk consumption? When I started using AFR I was dosing 90mls a day, now Im up close to 150mls a day, via Neptune DOS. Once or twice a week, I need to pour in some 2 part BiCarb to push the Alk back into decent numbers. Within 3 days, I go from 8.2 down to 6.5 Any thoughts or ideas you guys think I should try? My only thought was to verify its dosing 150mls, which I believe it is, because Im burning through AFR.

TIA
 
I believe I’ve seen Randy Holmes Farley say that is a long term issue with Calcium Formate based products. I’ll see if I can find it.

That being said, I’m always a strong proponent of questioning testing equipment when something seems out of order. Verify the suspect reading with another means if possible.
 
Here’s my trident tests,
reef junkie said:
Is this premixed or are you mixing your own from powder. Confirmed your mixing properly if diy and the correct amount? only other thing I could think of.
Click to expand...

160g of dry to 1000mls of rodi, in mixer. Mix for 115-20 mins, then pour into dosing container. Same process as always…….
 
Weird... I have been using the pre-mixed for a year and my numbers barely move. If you switch to say Red Sea Reef Foundation B (Alk) does number stay stable?
 
Beginning of week it was way low, bumped up to 7.5 on the 3rd…over the past week of dosing, the slow decline :/…..happens each week.
 

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This is a new concept I’m hearing … the other day I heard on one of the podcast that Kalk stops working too after a while. But it was being sharing by someone promoting the “Bolus” method so I took it with a grain of salt. If it is truly stalling something is depleted in the equation
 
Could there be an event in the tank that might have caused a spike in bacterial activity .. like something died
 
No luck on any of the checks. I calibrated DOS and that was dead on. I mixed up new batches of AFR at 160g of dry to 1000mls water. Normally test with Trident, Hanna checkers, confirm drop. Today I increased AFR another 10 mls per day.
 
You could try a test in a separate batch of water. Take 200 mL and dose from your dosing pump into that. Since there’s no bacteria, you would have to check your change in calcium, which apparently happens immediately upon dosing. Since it’s a totally separate container you could easily dose a big enough amount that you’d see a 20 or 50 PPM change in calcium just to confirm that everything is working exactly how you expect
 
Is there a reason your watering down the all for reef? I mix 160g to 900ml RO. Don't think it matters much other then you will dose more and it does not explain your situation either.
 
Might be worth a shot to test mag as well. If your mag is too low the alk/ca will not increase/stay increased for very long. Sounds like this may be a little different scenario but still worth a shot.

I used DIY AFR in my old tank for 3+ years and the only issue I had with it was the above one. This was back before the actual powder, when you had to buy and mix all the components separately. I started adding in double the amount of mag to the mix and it corrected itself.
 
AFR has a delay in any significant alkalinity readings. Do you dose throughout the day? The delay can be from a few hours to a couple of days.

I use AFR and currently do 46mL a day. That is spread over 4 intervals and 9 hours. I time this to start a couple hours after my auto water change is finished. On a ~250 gallon mixed reef. Not sure how big your system is.
 
MistakesWereMade said:
AFR has a delay in any significant alkalinity readings. Do you dose throughout the day? The delay can be from a few hours to a couple of days.

I use AFR and currently do 46mL a day. That is spread over 4 intervals and 9 hours. I time this to start a couple hours after my auto water change is finished. On a ~250 gallon mixed reef. Not sure how big your system is.
Click to expand...
Yeah this as well. Definitely ~24hour delay. This is why people say it's not the best to use with an automatic alk tester/doser, however I did it for years with good success. I don't know why it worked but I didn't question it :)
 
Another thought. How’s you ph. I’m currently chasing low alk due to I think increased ph. Did you lower the number of pets or people in the home. Or do anything that would affect ph in the tank?
 
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