If you have to perform corrections after a triton test, they will advise you how much and how often you should dose something. Does it really matter which brand? I mean Kh is Kh, iodine is iodine and Mn is Mn in my opinion, or is not this reasoning valid?
Difference Macro Elements of various brands
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Randy Holmes-Farley
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Do you have a brand you are considering? There certainly are materials that are unsuitable, and some that are suitable. As to brand, IMO, many DIY are at least as good as brand names, although for individual trace elements, the list of choices may be limited for most buyers.
FWIW, I'm not a fan of the term macro element, and it doesn't technically apply to manganese in seawater (it is a trace element). I have no idea why Triton chooses this nonstandard way to list elements in seawater.
FWIW, I'm not a fan of the term macro element, and it doesn't technically apply to manganese in seawater (it is a trace element). I have no idea why Triton chooses this nonstandard way to list elements in seawater.
Of course Triton advises their own products, but for example as the examples above you also have the purchase of Aquaforest, greedy, red sea etc.
So I mean if you have to administer 100 ml of triton calcium, should that also be of a different brand?
Randy Holmes-Farley
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For many of these, most brands are OK.
In a different thread on how we'd do out next tank, my comment was I'd get data from Triton, decide for myself which elements I considered important (regardless of the Triton recommendation) and then dose them when needed, mostly from either DIY or a quality brand, whichever seemed cheaper and/or readily available.
Dennis Cartier
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I think I know where you are going with this. Having just done my first Triton test recently, I also was researching how to act upon their recommendations. Triton provides their dosing recommendations based on the water volume that you have provided and the concentrations of their additives. A little investigation revealed that their additives are very pricey for the quantity of the product and the sheer number of things they recommend dosing. Most of my recomendations (based on tank size) where fractions of a ml (e.g. 0.15 ml).
You can use other brands of additives, however you will have to calculate the dose amount manually yourself if the strength of the additive is provided from the manufacturer. Those brands of additives that only provide broad generalizations (of strength), should be avoided. Posting to this forum to get confirmation as to your caclulated adjustment is probably a good idea as well.
As Randy mentioned, discretion as to what elements as highlighted by Triton are varying from their concept of natural seawater is up to us if we want to heed their advice.
As an example, my results included dosing help for Sr, Mo, Mn, V, Ni, Zn. Of these the only element that I will dose for sure is Strontium (Sr). For that I will use an of the shelf additive.
Dennis
