All for Reef!!! Excited to make the change! What say you?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It’s a stand alone product?

How did you manage to draw that conclusion?

AFR is a stand alone product in many tanks if dosed to maintain alk and one is doing normal water changes. There will be a long slow calcium rise, but water changes will mitigate that effect over time.

I know you are focused on trace elements being at some predetermined level, but the evidence for that is fairly weak, and lots of folks are quite happy with AFR along.

 

[Troylee]

It’s a stand alone product?

How did you manage to draw that conclusion?

Lou said it himself it’s an all in one product! Yes it can be tweaked but you don’t have to!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The most common danger of chasing number is that misunderstandings or bad recommendations cause more harm than good.

I agree. That is exactly true any time someone claims "chasing numbers" is somehow undesirable.

The only possible issues can arise if the chased number is a poor choice, or the chase is done in a suboptimal way.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

And for good reason. Both are important elements.

Can you provide evidence that strontium is an important element to supplement?

I've looked for such evidence for many, many years and have not seen it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Long story short, AFR is not a stand alone product. It cannot keep up with a demanding SPS tank. Furthermore,
Just like all the other AIO products, AFR is known to overdose multiple different trace elements in younger systems. Nobody can predetermine a specific fixed ratio for multiple trace elements, stick them all in one bottle, and call it good across the board for reefers who all have different variables, biomass, coral species, etc. As mentioned before, there’s not one product out there that’s a “one size fits all.” You can try to base the dosing off Alkalinity or Calcium demand, but that doesn’t work well. The consumption for every reef is always different, because every system is different.

So your evidence that it is not a stand alone product is chemical testing to look for numbers that you believe are desirable rather than evidence of reefs using only it?

Alternatively, cannot one look at tanks using it and having a fine reef tank be evidence that whatever number they see is good enough? Presumably that how you set your desirable numbers to begin with.

 

[Troylee]

You’ll understand later my friend. I look at a lot of ICP data. Much of that data is from reefers coming off AFR or just starting AFR and trying to combine AFR with another methodology. In their mind, AFR + X product will make it that much better. This usually last about 3-6 months until they start overdosing several elements and then they finally switch to a regular 2-part without traces that doesn’t interfere.

Long story short, AFR is not a stand alone product. It cannot keep up with a demanding SPS tank. Furthermore,
Just like all the other AIO products, AFR is known to overdose multiple different trace elements in younger systems. Nobody can predetermine a specific fixed ratio for multiple trace elements, stick them all in one bottle, and call it good across the board for reefers who all have different variables, biomass, coral species, etc. As mentioned before, there’s not one product out there that’s a “one size fits all.” You can try to base the dosing off Alkalinity or Calcium demand, but that doesn’t work well. The consumption for every reef is always different, because every system is different. Each element will be consumed at a different rate. So if you have a set ratio/potency that you cannot control, you will either need to stop that entire AIO bottle that’s overdosing X element/s, or add another product if you’re underdosing X elememt/s. It’s just that simple. Stopping the entire bottle means you also stopped a Major element (typically Alk, Ca, or Mg) and several other trace elements. Now you need to switch products and calculate a new dose for a major element based on the potency of the new product and get that dialed back in.


Here’s a prime example and I could probably give you 50 more.

That’s the difference between me and you! I’m old school we didn’t have a quarter of the test kits available then that’s offered to you today! I mean icp were some clowns that wrestled when I started reefing and keeping sps successfully.. I’ll never spend my money on a icp test that’s been shown to be inaccurate over and over! I’d rather buy more corals and watch my tank grow just like it always has. Cheers!

 

[Lou Ekus]

i have to apologize here, I must have missed one paerticular comment and I am confused.

Can someone explain to me this conversation about AFR being or not being a
"stand alone product"? What is ment by that? Those specific words have never come out of my mouth!

If "stand alone product" means a single product to add to your tank and you will never need any other, then OF COURSE that is not the case.

Can someone please clarify what this discussion is ment to mean so I can weigh in?

THANKS!

 

[Troylee]

It’s a stand alone product?

How did you manage to draw that conclusion?

@Lou Ekus. I said it was a stand alone product and he came up with this conclusion.

 

[Lou Ekus]

@Lou Ekus. I said it was a stand alone product and he came up with this conclusion.

At what point (time stamp number please) did I say "stand alone product"?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

And I agreed it can be a stand alone product, if one is using normal water changes, because many tanks use only it and are thriving even after a considerable period of time.

Of course one may want to add other stuff (say, more iron), but some folks do not.

I ran my reef tank on less (kalkwasser alone) for many years.

 

[Troylee]

At what point (time stamp number please) did I say "stand alone product"?

You did not. I said it was a stand alone product because it basically is. He responded with a snip it of you saying it IS but you MIGHT “have to tweak” stuff here or there to show I’m incorrect and spreading false information.

 

[Troylee]

And I agreed, if one is using normal water changes, because many tanks use only it and are thriving even after a considerable period of time.

Of course one may want to add other stuff (say, more iron), but some folks do not.

I ran my reef tank on less (kalkwasser alone) for many years.

And I agree with this! That’s all we had when people started keeping reefs or a calcium reactor.. to this day it’s all I use “kalk and all for reef” because the kalk don’t keep up. I’d use all for reef and nothing else if it had the added ph benefit and wasn’t gonna cost me an arm and a leg lol.. look @SunnyX tank it’s all kalk and all for reef driven it’s amazing and overgrown in a single year! Let’s just say if icp wasn’t around people wouldn’t be chasing these numbers and everyone would be happy with their tanks like we used to be haha! Nothings changed in reef keeping it’s the basics that got us here, today it’s just more of headache with more testing if you ask me.

 

[thedon986]

Question here ‍
I’ve been dosing AFR for about a month in a 7 mo tank. It’s a 300g tank with about 250g of water including sump. I’ve got some coral but not a ton. Somehow, it’s requiring 140ml/day of AFR to keep my alk and ca normal.

Alk 7.6-7.8
Ca 415-420
Mag 1300

Tested by trident daily and Hannah checker correlates

That seems like a ton of AFR right?

I can’t figure it out but I do know a lot of my snails have started dying since I started it.

I was dosing about 80ml each of sea hen two part before this.

What gives??

How much coral is some? How much coraline algae do you have growing? I imagine that the coraline is starting to take off and driving consumption.

 

[Dburr1014]

And I agree with this! That’s all we had when people started keeping reefs or a calcium reactor.. to this day it’s all I use “kalk and all for reef” because the kalk don’t keep up. I’d use all for reef and nothing else if it had the added ph benefit and wasn’t gonna cost me an arm and a leg lol.. look @SunnyX tank it’s all kalk and all for reef driven it’s amazing and overgrown in a single year! Let’s just say if icp wasn’t around people wouldn’t be chasing these numbers and everyone would be happy with their tanks like we used to be haha! Nothings changed in reef keeping it’s the basics that got us here, today it’s just more of headache with more testing if you ask me.

Took a peek at your build thread, wow. Very nice!

How much AFR are you doing per day?

 

[Troylee]

Took a peek at your build thread, wow. Very nice!

How much AFR are you doing per day?

Currently 60ml a day.. it changes depending on my evaporation..

 

[Cichlid Dad]

All for reef was originally meant for small reefs and part of this is regular water changes to correct imbalances.
For me I have a 100 gallon system and do regular large water changes. I'm my system I keep everything steady with no creeping of the big three. In order to do this I dose AFR so my Magnesium and Calcium remains even and my ALK falling a little over time. I then use BSR three part to make miner tweaks . I have to test every week but I'm able to keep calcium 400-425 magnesium 1400- 1425 and ALK between 9-10. Yes it cost me a little more but have found great growth and color over just water changes and BRS three part.

 

[areefer01]

At what point (time stamp number please) did I say "stand alone product"?

Post below. But context is very important here. In the clip @Reefahholic linked you are talking to someone about AFR. At the 5 - 7 second mark you do say it is a single solution that doses calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, and trace elements. I mean it does, right?

You go on to explain here, and the recent BRS talk on dosing with Thomas(s), that one of the drawbacks is that you lose control on individual trace element dosing. If that is important to the hobbyist.

Honestly - you explained it clearly. Our fellow member here @Reefahholic likes a bit more control on their trace elements so this product isn't for them. My only issue is when they call users of the product newbies.

All for Reef!!! Excited to make the change! What say you?

It’s easy to keep a small amount of Randy’s DIY recipes around for such occasions and I also use it to raise the Pro Reef salt as it has been mixing up at 6.8 alk for me lately so I raise it near 8.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[areefer01]

BTW here is my AFR display. Also high phosphate peaking at 2.2 ppm. I don't encourage it but it also isn't the end of the display.

 

[Reefahholic]

AFR is a stand alone product in many tanks if dosed to maintain alk and one is doing normal water changes. There will be a long slow calcium rise, but water changes will mitigate that effect over time.

If you need to rely heavily on weekly or biweekly water changes to help it out, or use a salt low in Ca to mitigate a spike, I wouldn’t call that a stand alone approach. It certainly isn’t stand alone are able to keep up in a heavily dominated SPS system.

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

I dig it man. Right now, half a cup a day. No SPS except a monti cap. KH stays around 8.6 and Ca stays 42-430.

I will go to the powder when I run out of the liquid.