Dosing heavy metals

[remi010]

Hello guys,

I use compoment abc from aquaforest.

Compoment B has been empty for 3 weeks now and I do not dose it. Component B contains: cobalt, copper, chromium, manganese, vanadium, zinc, nickel, iron. How important are these elements in a full sps tank? The colors look good as always. I do not have any lps corals. I myself have the idea to only dose iron .... , Btw I do weekly water changes of 10% on 250L

 

[Hitman]

Personally I think if you're doing weekly water changes and using a quality salt all those elements are being replaced more so then the aquaforest products are truly adding.

 

[Silver14SS]

Have you considered an ICP test to see what elements are present in your tank with your existing routine? Maybe everything is fine the way it is

The ATI site has broad descriptions of their trace elements, hope it helps https://www.atinorthamerica.com/elements/

 

[remi010]

I'm definitely going to do an icp test next week. The most important thing is the question how important are these elements for a sps tank, I mean component B is actually useless, I think

 

[Hitman]

I'm definitely going to do an icp test next week. The most important thing is the question how important are these elements for a sps tank, I mean component B is actually useless, I think

In my opinion the manganese is the only one in component B useful. If your going to do a ICP test I highly recommend the ATI ICP test as I feel it offers a user friendly easy to understand brake down of your elements and how and what to dose. Marine Depot has a great stock of the ATI Essentials which is what they give directions on. I personally have never had to worry about the low or no stock items like Triton products.

 

[EmdeReef]

Hello guys,

I use compoment abc from aquaforest.

Compoment B has been empty for 3 weeks now and I do not dose it. Component B contains: cobalt, copper, chromium, manganese, vanadium, zinc, nickel, iron. How important are these elements in a full sps tank? The colors look good as always. I do not have any lps corals. I myself have the idea to only dose iron .... , Btw I do weekly water changes of 10% on 250L

In short, likely won’t hurt to dose but may not be necessary or help your corals. Best metric is observing your corals before and after dosing. The only imperfect indicator of one or more trace elements missing would be lack of fluorescent pigmentation.

All the trace elements you mention are found in zooxanthellae (more) and coral skeleton at different concentrations. Some play slightly more important roles than other (or at least we understand some elements a bit better), for example iron will boost zooxanthelle but may impede growth etc. TEs impact coral metabolism, or rather the enzymes.

Some measurements done on different reefs showed quite large deltas between concentrations for the same species of corals and yet corals didn’t show any signs of problems.