Elements with No Known Biological Role

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

nor even come in direct contact with it, yet their eggs got thinner because of it and we almost lost many of our birds of prey…

Just to clarify, however, they clearly came into direct contact with it after eating organisms that contained it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It’s not just the Moonshine Method. If I wasn’t doing this it would be ACI Method or if I was in Europe it would be Fauna Marin or Triton. I a fan of trace element dosing in general because I’ve never seen this much difference in the corals. I do agree that some elements are much more important than others. I’m just not quite sold that if something is consistently being used for years that it’s not important. We’re not taking about a few days or months. We’re talking about bottles and bottles for years.



78-79% lol

I’m not at all against trace element dosing. I just do not think there’s good evidence which ions need to be maintained in what forms at what min and max concentrations.

 

[Doctorgori]

@Pod_01 try to make sure your Fluoride level is on target also. From what I understand, there’s a functional relationship between Fluoride and Iodine. If Fluoride is depleted, you may have much more difficulty dialing in Iodine.

What is the basis of that statement?

The posting delay here is weird … I was going to ask that exact same question..

Also, @Reefahholic , have you noticed any measurable or obvious visual effects of depleted iodine?

 

[Doctorgori]

Just to clarify, however, they clearly came into direct contact with it after eating organisms that contained it.

I’m no wordsmith Randy but the point I was stumbling around with was, supposed you actually needed to measure DDT in a system and your test subjects were Eagles (corals)…how could you accurately determine what levels to dose in a system where the element in question accumulates in a similar manner?

 

[Reefahholic]

I’m not at all against trace element dosing. I’m just do not think there’s good evidence which ions need to be maintained in what forms at what min and max concentrations.

Well, I agree with you there. I just go off observations. The targets I’m using are working well so I’ll stick with these unless we learn new information. I’m always looking for new data, and the fastest way to grow corals.


When I see the corals change from this…

To this…even in PO4 levels of 0.4 ppm, I’m gonna stick to the current targets.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’m no wordsmith Randy but the point I was stumbling around with was, supposed you actually needed to measure DDT in a system and your test subjects were Eagles (corals)…how could you accurately determine what levels to dose in a system where the element in question accumulates in a similar manner?

Ah, yes, and that directly relates to corals, which might get many elements and molecules from foods as opposed to from the water column.

 

[Wasabiroot]

For me I try to think of it in terms of, "is the juice worth the squeeze". Is it possible astatine dosing helps a coral color up by 2% more? (No, as astatine isn't doseable and extraordinarily rare and radioactive and extraordinarily difficult to accumulate in more than microscopic amounts - went with a silly example deliberately)

I'm sure some of these elements don't "hurt" but many are present in salt mixes / NSW and them having no known biological role is good enough for me to not be concerned arsing around with them or titrating 4 micrograms per day period while I dose my special Wungus bacterial blend. Now, do you feel like it helps? Do you see actual, verifiable differences and not just "I think it looks better"? Go for it. It's your tank, not mine. But homie only has so much money.

I experimented with dosing iodine. I think it helped my gorgonians (Plexaura sp. seems to have elevated iodine as part of its tissue) but iodine is so reactive and forms so many different species (iodates, iodides etc) that react quickly that by the next day most if not all of what I added was probably gone or reacted away. So, I stopped. I will say that chelated iron complexes DID seem to help my neon green tenuis color up again, BUT that's anecdotally observed and could have been from a host of other, more beneficial things Iike water changes, nutrients, day period, etc that had a larger effect, so I would never say "dose iron when you have green tenuis". Not to mention iron IS loved by nuisance algae. Lanthanides were mentioned, and we know they are used by methanogen bacteria...but are we growing those or are we saltwater reef hobbyists? (It's a multidisciplinary hobby, sure, but bacteria/Archaea are gonna do their multi-billion year old thing regardless of whether or not we help them along). I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of carbon dosing or bacterial reef supplements, as people see great success in their useage, but I think it's more important overall to have a good understanding of the basics and be disciplined in somewhat regular maintenance

We are dumping dozens of elements in typically unknown concentration or chemical species (i.e. which salt of the element because it makes a difference, what oxidation level, are there free electrons etc etc) into warm saltwater and claiming we know fully what is going on. We hardly have a fully accurate picture of the coral holobiont and how the basics interact before we begin discussing trace elements in a "yep, this does that" way

My biggest issue with all of the dosing is price. Yes, I am paying for a company to bottle up a trace element, but let me give an example. Red sea trace C: FE and eight “light” metals that includes iron, manganese, cobalt, copper, aluminum, zinc, chrome and nickel. Aluminum has no known biological role and its cheap as heck, and so are all these other metals, being some of the most common industrial metals on Earth, yet I am signing a mortgage for 3 ounces of the stuff diluted to a completely unknown concentration. Heck, Brightwell lists hafnium salts in one of their products. Don't look at your reef and go "must be low hafnium, babe get the credit card".

I haven't even mentioned ICP tests. I'm sure 50 dollars later I'd see I am in "yellow" for strontiojoaquinite but my torch seems just fine with whatever the level is currently and is probably more concerned with eating more of my clownfish poop

 

[Reefahholic]

Also, @Reefahholic , have you noticed any measurable or obvious visual effects of depleted iodine?

Corals have poor tolerance to higher PAR values when the Iodine is low. This I’ve noticed in my own tank, but there’s other elements that help the coral protect itself from intense light. If Iodine and some of the other elements are low, the tissue will look cooked. I also believe there are more issues with STN when it’s low. Just something I’ve observed after looking at 100’s of ICP’s when Iodine is 60-80+ vs 0-20 ug/L.

 

[hunterallen40]

Ok, I just now figured out where some of the barium went. Lol.

Yes -- this is most likely where the barium is going. It is incorporated into the skeleton in place of calcium, which is why you can continue to dose it without it leaching out. It could also precipitate out.

We should be very careful about confirmation bias here. We get good results, but maybe 99% of the benefit comes from just 1 element. If so, do you want to keep buying $20-$40 bottles of elements to dose that don't do anything at all?

This is why I'm doing an experiment. On the frag tank I will not be doing corrections for barium, but will for everything else. I will remain open to the idea that barium may benefit things, but we'll see in a few months, I suppose. In the interim, I will track my alkalinity and calcium consumption, and see if things decrease. All other elements will be dosed in the usual amounts. I'll continue to dose barium on my display, and see if there is any noticeable difference (several corals exist in both systems, though the two systems are extremely different). There will be no barium or rubidium input whatsoever, as there are no fish in this system.

My hypothesis: the barium will lower in concentration for the first couple of months, then will remain mostly fixed. The inhabitants will continue to grow, and will not be noticeably different in coloration or sensitivity.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

This is why I'm doing an experiment. On the frag tank I will not be doing corrections for barium, but will for everything else. I will remain open to the idea that barium may benefit things, but we'll see in a few months, I suppose. In the interim, I will track my alkalinity and calcium consumption, and see if things decrease. All other elements will be dosed in the usual amounts. I'll continue to dose barium on my display, and see if there is any noticeable difference (several corals exist in both systems, though the two systems are extremely different). There will be no barium or rubidium input whatsoever, as there are no fish in this system.

Sounds great!

Are you measuring barium to see where it is?

My barium in my tank stabilized at 8.5 ug/L (according to Triton) despite no intentional dosing. It may have been present in the calcium hydroxide I used for kalkwasser, since calcium hydroxide comes from calcium carbonate that's been fired. This, it may just be making a round trip from calcium carbonate to reef tank to calcium carbonate.

 

[Hans-Werner]

There’s been many times I’ve heard, I wouldn’t dose X element, because “it has no known biological role” or “no known positive biological role.” Lets exclude elements like Bismuth or Aluminum, and focus on elements that are actually dosed by many folks like Barium, Moly, Rubidium, etc.

From the elements you name here, molybdenum has a biological role in metabolism and barium has at least a role in some skeletons. My suggestions for barium and especially for strontium is that they may act as crystal seeds for aragonite formation, also in the formation of aragonitic coral skeletons. Some swear that strontium additions are necessary.

If you want in-depth information about the biological roles of metals and other trace elements go to an online bookseller and search for "bioinorganic chemistry". You will get a list of textbooks but they are hard to read if you are not familiar with biochemistry and chemistry. I like the one of Wolfgang Kaim and Brigitte Schwederski, it is still quite easy to read.

A good start are the Wikipedia articles about bioinorganic chemistry and mineral (nutrient).

This doesn’t take into account the majority of trace elements added by FOOD!

The essential trace elements added with food are usually also needed by the organisms that eat the food.

Example: If you eat a steak it contains iron. However, you would not view this iron as a environmental pollution. Much of the iron from the steak you have eaten will be taken up and processed by yourself to be used in your metabolism. Some will be taken up by the bacteria in your intestines and used in their metabolism. The tiny rest that passes your intestines unaffected will be taken up by bacteria and algae in the sewage plant. What remains in the environment is not a burden but rather a deficit. Similar with most essential trace elements you add with food to your tank. They are just taken up by organisms for their metabolic functions.

Are you saying there was never a good reef tank before the wide spread introduction of ICP and trace elements?

I have published a trace elements formula in a German aquarium magazine in 1995/1996. In the subsequent years some one-man companies popped up selling different trace element formulas that most likely were descendants of the published formula. Korallen-Zucht/Zeovit established and run by Thomas Pohl was one of them.

In all modesty I think these formulas were part of the ascent of Acropora and other SPS that were introduced at the same time in reef aquaria. At least in Germany Acropora, Montipora and most other SPS were absent in trade before the early 90s.

This was long before ICP labs for reef keeping appeared.

have you noticed any measurable or obvious visual effects of depleted iodine?

I recommend to look at the polyp extension and retraction of gorgonians like the carpet forming Briareum.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I agree that some gorgonia have a clearly understood need for substantial iodine.

As a humorous side bar, my phone thinks gorgonia should be replaced by gor go s. Lol

 

[Doctorgori]

@reefaholic …TRULY/sincerely appreciate the thread and time; the discussion here is timely and relevant for me……
……shown below are bottles of Tropics Marins A- & K+ (my go to solution as I am familiar with/and trust TM’s brand)

But also notice mostly empty 650 peninsula in the background: Empty and “ALMOST” ready for sticks…


…holding up progress is the few “pioneer” corals in the 650 are dog pile brown; alive and barely growing….and to wit:
- ICP test came back funkier than a “James Brown greatest hits” CD … and probably because my tap/source water has more metal in it than a vintage copy of “Enter Sandman” (I’ve been waiting to say that ha!)
- jumping out at me: copper is @ 516ppb, Ca 8503, Mg 6538 …
…is the copper a concern? and should I even dose 2pt? (joking, sort of)

@Hans-Werner ; while we got your eyeballs here: (BTW, given your time; thanks in advance) but out of curiosity and in fairness, comparing the TM solution/line of products against the (perhaps trendy) Moonshiners method, a few questions:

- Is in your opinion/experience is there any evidence specific elements equate to specific colors? or specific visual results? (other than the previously mentioned iodine/gorgonian polyp observation)

- Would you say Tropic - Marins approach to trace dosing is ONLY including those elements known/proven to have a biological role?
OR is the purpose of A- & K+ Elements for getting things back in balance “chemically” in general? (for perhaps for a multitude of reasons outside of a strictly metabolic/biological coral uptake/depletion role?)

- when used as directed, are there any risk/negative side effects of overdosing? For example, overdosing Iodine (for instance) when trying to correct for a depletion of Bromine (for instance) ….

Again, relevance here is comparing element correction methods: TM’s “combined” approach against the Moonshiners more granular singular approach (again; “when used as directed”)

 

[hunterallen40]

Are you measuring barium to see where it is?

Yep -- I will continue to do my monthly ICP tests (ATI ICP-OES). Most recent test gave 15.62 µg/l, sampled on June 24th.

I just sent out an ICP yesterday, I'll update once I get the numbers. There was no correction dose for the barium for this test (the reef moonshiner target is 15 µg/l), so we'll consider this the starting data point. For this data point, I was running kalkwasser only for alkalinity and calcium. I had done a really big water change (> 50%) on June 1st, so I don't know how relevant the data points are before that, but I have several anyway if anyone wants to see them (I was also doing correction doses to maintain barium on this system).

So far growth is still great, and no big problems to report. I have one mariculture colony at the moment, and it's doing quite well. Two more will be added tomorrow .

My barium in my tank stabilized at 8.5 ug/L (according to Triton) despite no intentional dosing. It may have been present in the calcium hydroxide I used for kalkwasser, since calcium hydroxide comes from calcium carbonate that's been fired. This, it may just be making a round trip from calcium carbonate to reef tank to calcium carbonate.

@Randy Holmes-Farley that's actually a good amount higher than my display tends to be when I get my tests back. Latest was 6.18 µg/l (Oceamo ICP-MS, sampled June 27th). I run a calcium reactor there, and don't add kalkwasser to it. Due to the moonshiner rules, I corrected barium to 30 ppb (if less than 8, it gets corrected to 30 ppb. Otherwise 15 ppb), so we'll see where it sits next time around.

This brings up a good point, though... I do add a good amount of kalkwasser to the frag tank (tank water volume is ~50 gallons, I dose 1344mL daily). I use BRS kalkwasser at 2 tsp / gallon. I unfortunately don't have a good data point for how much barium is present in it. Other than that, I use your new 2-part recipe with sodium hydroxide for supplementing alk / ca. Hopefully this doesn't completely invalidate the data point...

How much kalkwasser were you dosing?

 

[hunterallen40]

@reefaholic …TRULY/sincerely appreciate the thread and time; the discussion here is timely and relevant for me……
……shown below are bottles of Tropics Marins A- & K+ (my go to solution as I am familiar with/and trust TM’s brand)

But also notice mostly empty 650 peninsula in the background: Empty and “ALMOST” ready for sticks…


…holding up progress is the few “pioneer” corals in the 650 are dog pile brown; alive and barely growing….and to wit:
- ICP test came back funkier than a “James Brown greatest hits” CD … and probably because my tap/source water has more metal in it than a vintage copy of “Enter Sandman” (I’ve been waiting to say that ha!)
- jumping out at me: copper is @ 516ppb, Ca 8503, Mg 6538 …
…is the copper a concern? and should I even dose 2pt? (joking, sort of)

@Hans-Werner ; while we got your eyeballs here: (BTW, given your time; thanks in advance) but out of curiosity and in fairness, comparing the TM solution/line of products against the (perhaps trendy) Moonshiners method, a few questions:

- Is in your opinion/experience is there any evidence specific elements equate to specific colors? or specific visual results? (other than the previously mentioned iodine/gorgonian polyp observation)

- Would you say Tropic - Marins approach to trace dosing is ONLY including those elements known/proven to have a biological role?
OR is the purpose of A- & K+ Elements for getting things back in balance “chemically” in general? (for perhaps for a multitude of reasons outside of a strictly metabolic/biological coral uptake/depletion role?)

- when used as directed, are there any risk/negative side effects of overdosing? For example, overdosing Iodine (for instance) when trying to correct for a depletion of Bromine (for instance) ….

Again, relevance here is comparing element correction methods: TM’s “combined” approach against the Moonshiners more granular singular approach (again; “when used as directed”)

Love your idol there .

IMO, I prefer moonshiner method to TM's approach (which I ran before I did moonshiner method) because it is more dialed in to my specific setup. I would say TM is better than no trace element supplementation, but it is not very precise and is super ambiguous about dosing instructions. Since the dose is tied to alkalinity, it's hard to tune. It's also funny to me that K+ apparently does not have potassium . All this said, it's not a bad way to do trace elements, and I saw improvements when I used it.

 

[Doctorgori]

Love your idol there .

IMO, I prefer moonshiner method to TM's approach (which I ran before I did moonshiner method) because it is more dialed in to my specific setup. I would say TM is better than no trace element supplementation, but it is not very precise and is super ambiguous about dosing instructions. Since the dose is tied to alkalinity, it's hard to tune. It's also funny to me that K+ apparently does not have potassium . All this said, it's not a bad way to do trace elements, and I saw improvements when I used it.

Yeah this is sorta along the lines of my thinking… I’m not summoning TM for a challenge, but perhaps a explanation as its lack of “Targeting” and “precision” has me concerned about overdosing something and some weird side effect (like tipping the balance towards some algae or whatever)…
Worse case its a lil wasteful but then again I’m not spending $300 on a bunch of bottles that are of no proven (as of yet) biological role

 

[Pod_01]

What color is that additive? Clear or purplish? Too bad companies do not actually list ingredients. The reason I ask is because some iodine compounds, such as I2, will impact other trace elements and effects (good or bad) may be due either to the iodine or to the other trace elements.

The liquid looks clear to me. I agree with the ingredients but I do understand that companies try to protect their recipes.

Anyways I did some digging through my ICP and some pictures.
Here is one of my Favias when the Iodine was low:

Middle is sunken and the colour was off.

Just took a picture today when I got home:

Middle is puffy and the yellow is not dull.
I made Iodine adjustment week or so back after ICP test and only to get to 0.065 value.

I do agree Iodine is only part of it. Other elements and compounds also need to be at the right level and there is no way for me to prove this is caused by Iodine.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The liquid looks clear to me. I agree with the ingredients but I do understand that companies try to protect their recipes.

Anyways I did some digging through my ICP and some pictures.
Here is one of my Favias when the Iodine was low:

Middle is sunken and the colour was off.

Just took a picture today when I got home:

Middle is puffy and the yellow is not dull.
I made Iodine adjustment week or so back after ICP test and only to get to 0.065 value.

I do agree Iodine is only part of it. Other elements and compounds also need to be at the right level and there is no way for me to prove this is caused by Iodine.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Reefahholic]

That’s a nice color change for sure!

 

[Reefahholic]

It would be difficult to figure out which elements are doing what, because you’d need to have multiple tanks running with a baseline salt mix (similar to the BRS test tanks), to see decent data quickly. Then dose each element individually after the tank is already established/stable, and running for 3 yrs or so. This would minimize swings or instability within each system. Everything obviously needs to be the same. Then dose the element and observe (taking notes) for several weeks taking pictures before and after with the same light spectrum. The problem is that many of these elements have functional relationships. If one element is low, the other element will not have the same effect or benefit as it would if that element/s were in normal range/s. The problem with typical reefers trying these experiments is every system has so many different variables going on such as filtration, refugium, source water, skimmer, rock, sand, light, feeding, temp, flow, swings, etc. The data couldn’t be trusted IMO. I think it would take years to figure out some of these things. You would need to look at things on a consistent basis. Not only that, but some of these biological or biochemical processes are not visually seen. These processes are taking place at a molecular level.

IMO, the best way to understand “some” of these biological roles (at this current time) is to speak with the experts like Claude at Fauna Marin, Eshan, ATI, Andre, or others in Europe who’ve been testing and playing with these elements for years. Although anecdotal, the information they can share is extremely valuable IMO. They all have running farms or reef tanks. I know Claude has ICP in-house, the farm, and sells his own line of trace elements. He doesn’t need to wait on ICP turn-around. Everyday Claude results 10-15 analyses on his coral farm “alone”, and he can observe and appreciate any changes “after” corrections are made. He has a team of lab technicians whose only job is to get accurate results for their farm. Being in-house both can communicate and give feedback daily.

Fauna Marin has been ICP testing for a decade or longer now, resulting 100’s of analyses daily from multiple different countries, and they’ve been able to learn from us just like Triton has. After so many analyses, (most having detailed information they’ve collected from us), specific patterns and details start to emerge, and are repeated. These are the folks I’m following and listening to, because my own research is too slow and not at that level. I’m Just glad Andre is communicating with all those folks in Europe. I cannot speak German. So…