ICP test help

[Soulflame]

Hi
How would you guys handle my test results?
Info on my tank:
I have a red sea reefer 350.
My Kh is 9 (controlled by GHL Kh Director)
I'm dosing vodka
No water changes
I'm using the fauna marin Balling Lite

I would like to see more colours in my corals.
Should I buy all the supplements 15 bottles.. very expensive.
And would you increase the amount of trace elements in the balling solutions?

 

[FactoryKTMmotocross46]

What are your nitrates? Why aernt you doing water changes?

 

[Soulflame]

My nitrates are 5 and not dropping yet.
I don't do water changes because I don't thinks it's needed if I export the nutrients by other ways and supply the trace elements.

 

[Pancake]

Your icp shows that many of your trace elements are undetectable. My icp showed similar results because I too don’t do water changes either and my reason being that i don’t think it’s an efficient means of nutrient export. My phos is .02-.08. I don’t have any visible algae in my dt. Based on your icp being similar to mine, I would suggest Red Sea color program. I have noticed substantial and immediate increase in colorations using Red Sea color program. I also noticed immediate and notable coloration using kz amino concentrate. Personally I think Red Sea color program is the economical solution. Do the math on the 500ml bottles. Incredible value imho. Also I noticed that my acan and certain zoas were shriveling without any reason. As soon as I dosed the trace, they immediately plumped up. My conclusion is that trace depletion is very real in a no wc system.

 

[Soulflame]

Great info on you tank pancake.
Nice to hear that your tank are similar to mine.
How did you figure the dosing amount of the red sea color program?
The fauna marin would be easy just to dose the amount they recommend.
Could I also increase the trace elements that is in the balling solutions?

 

[Pancake]

Red Sea recommends you dose based on your calcium consumption. (1 drop from a typical medicine deopper is .05ml) so 20 drops is 1 ml. I use brs 2 part so they recommend 1 ml for approximately 51.1ml of brs calcium consumption. My tank consumes about 80ml of brs calcium so I should be dosing about 1.5ml based on their calculus. But I don’t believe in water changes so I dose conservatively at 1ml as I assume that everything I put in will need to be mostly consumed. In general I use the recommended dosage as the upper limit and dose within my comfort range within that. For me that is .5-1ml as I have seen the results that i have desired, but if I didn’t see results I would be willing to slowly raise to recommended levels before I give up on it. Your Red Reefer 350 shows 73 gallons which is about the same as my tank so in many aspects our tanks share some similarities. Interms of weather you should increase dosage on the fauna marin balling trace 1,2,3, I would say probably not if your already dosing recommended amounts. If trace deficiency is in fact the cause of your zoas not opening up then I would guess that fauna marin trace 1,2,3 doesn’t contain what they need. Having said that I don’t think it would hurt to elevate it slightly and monitor response as long as your not too far beyond recommendations. Strictly based on Fauna Marin 1,2,3 advertisement, it looks like they contain about 17ish trace elements while Red Sea based on their advertisement shows 32ish so I would say if you have exhausted simpler and cheaper solutions then this could be worth trying. Also if you are dosing Fauna Marin balling and your icp are showing undetectable amounts of trace that are suppose to be covered under fauna balling then I think that’s something that needs to be investigated. I do think however that icp results should not be taken as fact and to be interpreted more as a general guidance based on personal and others mixed results. I haven’t done enough icp tests compared to home test results to strongly say this, but my limited tests showed contradictions based on comparisons with icp and home tests, and Tropic Marin salt parameters.

 

[Pancake]

Red Sea recommends you dose based on your calcium consumption. (1 drop from a typical medicine deopper is .05ml) so 20 drops is 1 ml. I use brs 2 part so they recommend 1 ml for approximately 51.1ml of brs calcium consumption. My tank consumes about 80ml of brs calcium so I should be dosing about 1.5ml based on their calculus. But I don’t believe in water changes so I dose conservatively at 1ml as I assume that everything I put in will need to be mostly consumed. In general I use the recommended dosage as the upper limit and dose within my comfort range within that. For me that is .5-1ml as I have seen the results that i have desired, but if I didn’t see results I would be willing to slowly raise to recommended levels before I give up on it. Your Red Reefer 350 shows 73 gallons which is about the same as my tank so in many aspects our tanks share some similarities. Interms of weather you should increase dosage on the fauna marin balling trace 1,2,3, I would say probably not if your already dosing recommended amounts. If trace deficiency is in fact the cause of your zoas not opening up then I would guess that fauna marin trace 1,2,3 doesn’t contain what they need. Having said that I don’t think it would hurt to elevate it slightly and monitor response as long as your not too far beyond recommendations. Strictly based on Fauna Marin 1,2,3 advertisement, it looks like they contain about 17ish trace elements while Red Sea based on their advertisement shows 32ish so I would say if you have exhausted simpler and cheaper solutions then this could be worth trying. Also if you are dosing Fauna Marin balling and your icp are showing undetectable amounts of trace that are suppose to be covered under fauna balling then I think that’s something that needs to be investigated. I do think however that icp results should not be taken as fact and to be interpreted more as a general guidance based on personal and others mixed results. I haven’t done enough icp tests compared to home test results to strongly say this, but my limited tests showed contradictions based on comparisons with icp and home tests, and Tropic Marin salt parameters.

Sorry I included my thoughts from another discussion along with this discussion. Your not having coral health issues so please disregard the zoa not opening part. So in your case, playing with dosage on the fauna balling 1,2,3 trace could be helpful.

 

[Soulflame]

I think I'll give the red sea color a go.
Thx for the help pancake

 

[Soulflame]

Sorry I included my thoughts from another discussion along with this discussion. Your not having coral health issues so please disregard the zoa not opening part. So in your case, playing with dosage on the fauna balling 1,2,3 trace could be helpful.

No my tank looks good just want to fine tune it.
Ok I'll try to add more trace 1,2,3 according to fauna marin us prime frag system instead of normal balling lite.

 

[Pancake]

No my tank looks good just want to fine tune it.
Ok I'll try to add more trace 1,2,3 according to fauna marin us prime frag system instead of normal balling lite.

Hey soul flame, I looked at your icp again and compared to my results before running color program and it is actually lower than mine was in many areas. I think using a quality trace elements additive will give you a lot of results since it’s evident that their isn’t much in the reserve. Great looking tank btw, i think you will find your desired color improvement when you start using quality trace elements and aminos. I personally have seen drastic improvements using both. I think that’s one of the benefit of no wc, it’s easier for us to tell the effects of what we add since we don’t disturb that calculation by doing a wc. Good luck!

 

[teller]

Hi.
If you prefer using mainly Fauna Marin products maybe you can dose the Fauna Marin 3 bottles equivalent to the Red Sea 4 bottles color . Which is Fauna Marin Color elements Red Blue and Green.
Then after a month or so, run another ICP test and compare. Probably the number of individual trace elements bottles required decrease because you are already dosing these elements in the 3 bottles Color Elements Red, Blue and Green.

 

[Soulflame]

Hey soul flame, I looked at your icp again and compared to my results before running color program and it is actually lower than mine was in many areas. I think using a quality trace elements additive will give you a lot of results since it’s evident that their isn’t much in the reserve. Great looking tank btw, i think you will find your desired color improvement when you start using quality trace elements and aminos. I personally have seen drastic improvements using both. I think that’s one of the benefit of no wc, it’s easier for us to tell the effects of what we add since we don’t disturb that calculation by doing a wc. Good luck!

Thanks alot for the help pancake
That though of no wc was exactly my experience.
I'll try getting some trace elements

 

[Soulflame]

Hi.
If you prefer using mainly Fauna Marin products maybe you can dose the Fauna Marin 3 bottles equivalent to the Red Sea 4 bottles color . Which is Fauna Marin Color elements Red Blue and Green.
Then after a month or so, run another ICP test and compare. Probably the number of individual trace elements bottles required decrease because you are already dosing these elements in the 3 bottles Color Elements Red, Blue and Green.

I'll look into those bottles.
Thx for the reply

 

[Fauna Marin]

Hi
How would you guys handle my test results?
Info on my tank:
I have a red sea reefer 350.
My Kh is 9 (controlled by GHL Kh Director)
I'm dosing vodka
No water changes
I'm using the fauna marin Balling Lite

I would like to see more colours in my corals.
Should I buy all the supplements 15 bottles.. very expensive.
And would you increase the amount of trace elements in the balling solutions?

Hi Soulflame

Thank you for your patience.

After reviewing your ICP results I would recommend Trace Elements 1 from 25 ml to 50 ml and Trace Elements 2 from 25 ml to 60 ml in the CA solution.
The Trace Elements 3 from 25ml to 35ml in the KH solution
Also to raise the elements immediately to an efficient level.
I would recommend T1 3ml/100L as a one time dosage and T2 4ml

 

[Soulflame]

Hi Soulflame

Thank you for your patience.

After reviewing your ICP results I would recommend Trace Elements 1 from 25 ml to 50 ml and Trace Elements 2 from 25 ml to 60 ml in the CA solution.
The Trace Elements 3 from 25ml to 35ml in the KH solution
Also to raise the elements immediately to an efficient level.
I would recommend T1 3ml/100L as a one time dosage and T2 4ml

Thx for the help
So you would recommend me increasing the trace elements I put in the balling and to dose only one time with the trace 1 and 2 for balling direct into the tank trace 1 3ml/100 and trace 2 4ml/100l?
I also was looking into the color elements blue,red and green from your company, should I dose those or will it be too much for my consumption?

 

[Soulflame]

Can you please answer me if it's a good idea to use the fauna marin color elements ( blue,red and green) in addition to the raised trace elements in my balling lite ?