Anyone have any input on Red Sea TRACE COLORS?

[RussC]

I've been reading on Red Sea Trace Colors ABCD. They sound enticing. Any input from folks? My tank is doing well. I don't dose those elements. But if I could brighting up my colors, I'm certainly interested. Anyone have any good/bad feedback?

 

[mitch91175]

I've been reading on Red Sea Trace Colors ABCD. They sound enticing. Any input from folks? My tank is doing well. I don't dose those elements. But if I could brighting up my colors, I'm certainly interested. Anyone have any good/bad feedback?

I have a friend of mine that uses it on his tank. His colors are phenomenal and he doesn’t do any water changes. I don’t know if I can attribute it all to the RedSea program, but with him not doing any water changes, it’s definitely got to be a contributing factor. Here is a crappy phone pic of his tank.

He could easily win TOTM on here but he’s not into all of the forum stuff.

 

[mitch91175]

The crazy part about it is he values his water more than his corals, lol. I picked up some frags from him and he was more worried about his water than the frags. Nice problem to have, lol.

 

[mitch91175]

Forgot to mention, all of that growth is just from 12 1/2 months. Just nuts.

 

[RussC]

What kind of extra testing, if any, does he do since he’s adding these supplements? And you said he’s not doing water Changes? Is that ever? Or has he just reduced his water changes significantly?

That tank is hard to argue with. It’s popping with color!

 

[mitch91175]

What kind of extra testing, if any, does he do since he’s adding these supplements? And you said he’s not doing water Changes? Is that ever? Or has he just reduced his water changes significantly?

That tank is hard to argue with. It’s popping with color!

He doesn't do water changes unless he has to add from doing stuff like fragging his coral. He does test his water, but I cannot tell you how frequently. I tell you this though, with his tank being completely grown out in such a short period of time, I am going to get on whatever program he is doing for my adventure into SPS. He use Salifert kits for all of his testing. I think he is a freaking SPS whisperer or something, because in all of my time in reefing, I have never seen a tank as packed with SPS and specially done in 12 1/2 months. When I saw the original picture (with the time stamp mind you), I was like totally blown away. And the stuff he has isn't low end stuff.

What he does attribute his success to is have a lot a varied flow and he is running T5 with LED. He stressed that to me about having varied flow from multiple directions and just blasting his SPS with it. All the time I thought I had good flow with 4 - MP40s in a 240, but he said that isn't even enough. So I'll be adding 2 Maxspect Gyre XF150 to my back glass and having 2 MP40s on each side.

He also doesn't use all the fancy programming for everything with his Apex either. Just run his MP40s on ReefCrest and do not adjust them at night either.

 

[GoVols]

What kind of extra testing, if any, does he do since he’s adding these supplements? And you said he’s not doing water Changes? Is that ever? Or has he just reduced his water changes significantly?

That tank is hard to argue with. It’s popping with color!

You can dose the Red Sea "Colors" program to your calcium's intake per Red Sea's instructions or use their separate test kits for super high end acro reefs.

I always had great results just dosing to the cal intake, but I dosed an tad below the full dose.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I've been reading on Red Sea Trace Colors ABCD. They sound enticing. Any input from folks? My tank is doing well. I don't dose those elements. But if I could brighting up my colors, I'm certainly interested. Anyone have any good/bad feedback?

Are you using any trace element supplement now?

Unless you have some tests that indicate what you need, the only way to know if it might help your tank is to experiment with it.

 

[RussC]

Are you using any trace element supplement now?

Unless you have some tests that indicate what you need, the only way to know if it might help your tank is to experiment with it.

Curiousity has gotten my attention. But before I started a program like this, I was considering something like a Triton lab ICP test to get a broad analysis of my tank. I’m 9 months in, so I figured this might be a good time to take a hard look. Not really comfortable dosing anything without really knowing or having a way to monitor while dosing, so I’d certainly include a test kit if I did decide to do this program.

 

[mitch91175]

Curiousity has gotten my attention. But before I started a program like this, I was considering something like a Triton lab ICP test to get a broad analysis of my tank. I’m 9 months in, so I figured this might be a good time to take a hard look. Not really comfortable dosing anything without really knowing or having a way to monitor while dosing, so I’d certainly include a test kit if I did decide to do this program.

You can use the RedSea test kits to get an idea, but the Triton ICP test will work as well. I use Salifert test, just be prepared to feel like a Chemist when testing for potassium, iron, etc. Many steps that you can potentially mess up.