Dosing strontium?
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Troylee
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I do... It helps with growth in Sps IMHO not sure about other species thou.....I'm not a huge fan of water changes so it does help lol..
lpslover
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I do dose and find it valuable. Originally I started dosing my LPS tank as an experiment. The calcium consumption and growth rate picked up. Also, was never able to get the mushrooms (which are supposed to be idiot proof) in my softies tank to do well. Then I started dosing strontium to that tank and they took off like they'd been put on steroids. So needless to say I'm a believer.
Incidentally, I was also talking to the guy at my LFS who said a customer had been dosing his SPS tank with really high levels of strontium (2-3 times recommended doses) and was getting insane green colors as a result. Anyone else tried this? Or heard similar stories?
Incidentally, I was also talking to the guy at my LFS who said a customer had been dosing his SPS tank with really high levels of strontium (2-3 times recommended doses) and was getting insane green colors as a result. Anyone else tried this? Or heard similar stories?
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I have dosed in the past but didn't notice a big difference in much of anything. If you do regular water changes, I don't think it's really necessary.
Not sure which LFS is using 2-3 times the recommended dose but I would be weary of that. Green is the easiest color to pull out in acros. I don't think many folks need help with that color. Now, if it brought out the yellows and oranges, then I would be more willing to try it. : ) But overdosing any chemical scares me a bit.
There are just too many variables in a reef tank to say whether Strontium is the "key" to something. Corals coloring up and new growth could be attributed to many things (or a combination of things). Just my 2 cents.
Not sure which LFS is using 2-3 times the recommended dose but I would be weary of that. Green is the easiest color to pull out in acros. I don't think many folks need help with that color. Now, if it brought out the yellows and oranges, then I would be more willing to try it. : ) But overdosing any chemical scares me a bit.
There are just too many variables in a reef tank to say whether Strontium is the "key" to something. Corals coloring up and new growth could be attributed to many things (or a combination of things). Just my 2 cents.
falconerr
Active Member
Have to agree with soccerbag i don't like dosing a lot of different chemicals especially strontium because i've read different things about what happens if you dose too much. I believe in keeping things as simple as you can. Water changes are the best things we as reefers can do imo.
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lpslover
Community Member
Fish 4 U, and just to clarify, the store was not dosing this high a level. They had a customer who had experimented with it and reported that it created really bright greens. I don't know who it was or what the rest of the results were with the tank. But for what use it may be to someone now or in the future, I thought I'd share what I had heard.
soccerbag I agree that many variables are involved, and I certainly don't mean to sound like I'm pushing the high strontium dosing. I don't do so in my tanks, nor would I recommend it unless you are willing to take the substantial risks associated with highly experimental reefing.
But I thought it was valuable to pass on because so much of the evolution of reef keeping is someone trying something sorta crazy that turns out to have some interesting results, then sharing those results so that others can learn from and improve upon their experiments. Some turn out to be a bunch of crap, some turn out to be common practice a year down the road. I'm sure there were plenty of people who thought the idea of adding Vodka to your tank was insane when it was first tried. But now there are a great many of us who do so.
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OP
OP
Thanks for the replies everyone! I think I'm going to try to dose and see what results I get. Something is just a bit lacking in my colors right now. Growth is ok in my SPS but really good in my LPS.
OP
OP
Colors are ok. Just lacking something. I'm running biopellets and they are kicking in. No problem with trates or phos.
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Just like everything else, if you don't have a test kit for it, use the kit on a regular basis and know you have a demand for it then don't put it in your tank.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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It's one way, certainly, but strontium is also depleted from reef aquaria is tight correlation with calcium, so if you know the calcium depletion rate, you can determine a satisfactory amount of strontium to dose, even without measuring it.
That said, I'm not convinced strontium is useful.
McPikie
Active Member
It's one way, certainly, but strontium is also depleted from reef aquaria is tight correlation with calcium, so if you know the calcium depletion rate, you can determine a satisfactory amount of strontium to dose, even without measuring it.
That said, I'm not convinced strontium is useful.
My ICP is showing strontimu in NSW to be 6.0 to 10.0mg/l, but mine is at 5.0mg/l. I'd like to consider buffing that up a little, or would you recommend leaving it well alone?
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It is a fine experiment and can't cause a problem, but I also would not anticipate any apparent visual difference in the tank.
