importance of trace elements while growing SPS corals?

[madweazl]

I dose nothing but 2-part and the occasional magnesium if levels need a bump (about every quarter). With that said, I do fairly large water changes at roughly 27% weekly (20g for a 75g display).

 

[Mal11224]

I used to dose ESV 2 part and kept my parameters very stable. I also used acro power as well twice a week. Kept my PO4 at .03 and NO3 at 5. This help me improve my colors.

Now I use a calcium reactor with acro power and results are the same.

ESV worked great while I used it but was always buying refills.

 

[iron_mike_gt]

I use the triton method, and automatically dose trace as part of the core7 program. My tank was established for years before switching, so several elements were required specific doses after my first ICP test. My tank Inhabitants and carbon also seem to strip out some of these elements faster, like zinc, manganese, and iodine so there’s a recommended weekly dose of each of those discrete ones that I perform on the weekend. At this point I’m doing ICP tests every 2 to 3 months and adjusting the element dosing based on the outcome and their recommendations.

 

[Iván Olalla]

Yes but not with testing...i use the Fauna Marin balling light method and it includes trace elements to be added in the mix in a balanced way.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

How many here dose trace elements into your systems?
The reason I ask is , I've been having problems keeping the colors of the SPS corals vibrant and I'm wondering if there is a correlation between these trace elements and the coloration of the corals?

Since returning 10/2017, I think after 6mo got ICP test. Was off but nothing to lose sleep over.,ICP help correct deficiencies.
Comrade

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I use the triton method, and automatically dose trace as part of the core7 program. My tank was established for years before switching, so several elements were required specific doses after my first ICP test. My tank Inhabitants and carbon also seem to strip out some of these elements faster, like zinc, manganese, and iodine so there’s a recommended weekly dose of each of those discrete ones that I perform on the weekend. At this point I’m doing ICP tests every 2 to 3 months and adjusting the element dosing based on the outcome and their recommendations.

No wonder core 7 is back ordered this answers on my questions.

 

[Greatreefer]

Cool, if it was me I’d try to get my ALK really stable, get my Ca upto 420, my mg down to 1300 for a start. Then let it stabilise for a few mnths. What do you run PO4 level at?

My Hanna checker ULR p04 has expired reagents and I just ordered more. But before it expired, it was registering at 5ppb. If I did the conversion correctly, it should be around 0.05ppm however, this reading was about 3 months ago.

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

Well lol I am definitely different than most on how I do it. If your running a low nutrient system you want alk between 7-8 cal 440, mag 1390 ball park. My nitrates are 2-5ppm etc but I have to dose nopox 20ml a day or they go up. Because my nutrients are low, I feed a little more and I use the redsea nopox daily of 20 ml. I also dose alk 2.5 tablespoons a day and cal is at 2.5 a day just to keep me at 7-8 and 440. Mag is like 10ml every 2 weeks if that. Now I dose the redsea trace elements, which is the four little bottles. Since this is based on calcium only, it means my tank gets 1.5 ml of each per day. I do everything by hand, and my sps grows like crazy and has great colors. I haven’t changed my water in over a year now: I run two uvc steralizers but switched to a level 1 steralizer with ozone (which it’s not even delievered to me yet). But water is crystal clear from the lower uv steralizers. I use filter socks on the drains and 300 micro filter socks over my twin returns. (Yes they have to be cleaned often).

I use the current marine pro (the good ones not the ic pros) and I am running plus 20,000 in flow. I have four current usa 2100 gph then I have two icecap 3k then current eflux 3200 gph dc returns (2x) then I have 2 current usa 1200 that run in the far lower corners of the tank.

My tank is almost 19 months old and started pretty much from small frags and now it’s over growing my 240.
My best advice is find what works for you and keep it. My way works for me so I keep it. No idea if it will work for anyone else. But I have noticed in my tank the sweet spots for alk and cal is 8 and 440. I do feed my corals twice a week with coral food. I’ll mix it up and turn the flow off and feed every single one with the eye dropper. It’s my way knowing they are getting food at least twice a week.

Here are recent pics with my iPhone with lights on normal. Looks better in real life but my phone hates my lights on my tank. I also make my own log book, I use just a regular note book and days I test my tank I write the values down and look over time to see how the tank changes. It’s also just in case some one needs to care for my tank they have months and months of info on where the tank sits parameter wise.

Hint for dosing trace elements it’s based on calcium levels. Example I use 2.5 mg of seachem calcium powder, that converts to 200grams which means using math that is 1.5 mg of each trace element based on the calcium in the tank. My tank has done amazing and I have never tested trace elements, I base it on calcium. Even says to base it on calcium in the redsea directions so trace elements tests are not actually needed.

 

[hart24601]

Depends if one considers AWC dosing trace elements. Or perhaps trace elements regulation. Provides them if too low, lowers them if too high.

It's not the most exciting option, but it really ideal for trace elements with possible exception of iron and the such for macros. Overall it's probably one of the more affordable trace element solutions as well long term.

 

[Greatreefer]

Cool, if it was me I’d try to get my ALK really stable, get my Ca upto 420, my mg down to 1300 for a start. Then let it stabilise for a few mnths. What do you run PO4 level at?

working on it. lol. I', currently using a Neptune DOS to dose both DKH and CA into the system. ATM I'm dosing 10 ML of BRS soda ash a week
and 12.5 ML of BRS Calcium Chloride. THinking about switching over to Kalkwasser however, cannot justify switching until my current batch is all gone.

 

[Greatreefer]

If you dose trace elements, do you also test for them? What tests do you use? I have a hard time figuring out how much to add as while the ingredients are listed, the quantities are not. Do you just go by the bottle instructions? How do you know you need them or arent overdosing?

that's kinda what I was hinting at with actually testing the trace elements. However, the only test kits I was able to find are made by redsea and they are kinda expensive and take an insane amount of time to preform.
I guess you could go the freshwater plant route and do estimated index dosing and jack up the trace elements and then do like a 50% WC to compensate?.. Has anyone tried this approach?

 

[Orm Embar]

If you dose trace elements, do you also test for them? What tests do you use? I have a hard time figuring out how much to add as while the ingredients are listed, the quantities are not. Do you just go by the bottle instructions? How do you know you need them or arent overdosing?

I use a combination product, so it's all dosed per the manufacturer's ingredient ratios. For testing, your options are 1) Triton, 2) Triton competitor, or 3) Wing it. I'm going with option 3 at the present. ;-)

 

[Tank Homer]

I don't do any water changes and follow the Triton method with great success.

 

[Mortie31]

The problem with your question is, you will get a million different answers, everyone does it differently and have different systems, but in all my years of doing this stability is one common denominator for the vast majority of successful SPS tanks.... if your going to do water changes, pick a salt, then keep your ALK, Ca, K and Mg at this same level. I’d get this bit correct before Starting looking for other solutions to your issues otherwise you’ll be chasing your tail forever and never knowing what solves what issue... after a few months get an ICP test done and report back and we can then help further.. as regarding test kits, trace elements are so difficult to measure even for ICPs, I’d potentially get a potassium kit, the others I wouldn’t bother with for now...

 

[nick9one1]

Do you do regular water changes? I’ve read, here on r2r, that with regular water changes you shouldn’t need to add trace elements. I don’t do a lot of water changes so I add Two Little Fishes (TLF) Sea Elements and TLF Strontium weekly per instructions along with Acropower, Alk and Calcium daily. Since starting with the supplements I’ve seen a huge difference in growth rate and coloring. You could try starting with small bottles of whichever brand you choose and you will know within a couple of weeks weather it’s worth it for you or not.

Regular water changes will help, but elements will still deplete over time. You still need to dose with extra trace/major elements.

for example;

I have a 200l tank that uses around 10ppm calcium a week. I like to keep the tank at 400ppm.
After 1 week my calcium is at 390ppm.
I do a 40% water change with new 400ppm water
I now have a mixture of 60% old 390ppm water and 40% 400ppm water.
This equals 394ppm after the water change.

This example is for calcium, but is relevant to all the major and minor elements. If you rely on water changes and occasionally top up the levels with kalkwasser, the rest of your elements will be depleted.

I now use a 3 channel doser and ATI elements pro. - Two bottles that maintain all my major and minor elements.

 

[nick9one1]

Not sure if I explained that very well.. this might be better

We can top up the calcium to 400ppm with something like kalkwasser, but the trace elements will also be equally depleted.

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

I dose the Red Sea trace elements 1:10 to my calcium dose.

To make sure the levels aren't totally out of control I do an ICP test twice a year.

I have found that the 1:10 ratio recommended by Red Sea has done a good job of keeping everything balanced based on the test results.

 

[BestMomEver]

I use Red Sea’s color program. It includes iron, iodine, potassium, and bioactive ingredients. I also ordered the Red Sea test kit for those elements. I dose every 1-2 weeks and test every month. I also send water off to ICP every three months or so. I have found that corals have better color and grow better when I use it. I don’t use as much (if at all) iodine when I dose. It’s one of those things I rarely need and can be detrimental if too high.

 

[Greatreefer]

Hello,

Well lol I am definitely different than most on how I do it. If your running a low nutrient system you want alk between 7-8 cal 440, mag 1390 ball park. My nitrates are 2-5ppm etc but I have to dose nopox 20ml a day or they go up. Because my nutrients are low, I feed a little more and I use the redsea nopox daily of 20 ml. I also dose alk 2.5 tablespoons a day and cal is at 2.5 a day just to keep me at 7-8 and 440. Mag is like 10ml every 2 weeks if that. Now I dose the redsea trace elements, which is the four little bottles. Since this is based on calcium only, it means my tank gets 1.5 ml of each per day. I do everything by hand, and my sps grows like crazy and has great colors. I haven’t changed my water in over a year now: I run two uvc steralizers but switched to a level 1 steralizer with ozone (which it’s not even delievered to me yet). But water is crystal clear from the lower uv steralizers. I use filter socks on the drains and 300 micro filter socks over my twin returns. (Yes they have to be cleaned often).

I use the current marine pro (the good ones not the ic pros) and I am running plus 20,000 in flow. I have four current usa 2100 gph then I have two icecap 3k then current eflux 3200 gph dc returns (2x) then I have 2 current usa 1200 that run in the far lower corners of the tank.

My tank is almost 19 months old and started pretty much from small frags and now it’s over growing my 240.
My best advice is find what works for you and keep it. My way works for me so I keep it. No idea if it will work for anyone else. But I have noticed in my tank the sweet spots for alk and cal is 8 and 440. I do feed my corals twice a week with coral food. I’ll mix it up and turn the flow off and feed every single one with the eye dropper. It’s my way knowing they are getting food at least twice a week.

Here are recent pics with my iPhone with lights on normal. Looks better in real life but my phone hates my lights on my tank. I also make my own log book, I use just a regular note book and days I test my tank I write the values down and look over time to see how the tank changes. It’s also just in case some one needs to care for my tank they have months and months of info on where the tank sits parameter wise.

Hint for dosing trace elements it’s based on calcium levels. Example I use 2.5 mg of seachem calcium powder, that converts to 200grams which means using math that is 1.5 mg of each trace element based on the calcium in the tank. My tank has done amazing and I have never tested trace elements, I base it on calcium. Even says to base it on calcium in the redsea directions so trace elements tests are not actually needed.

WOW.. So much info and so many questions for you on your dosing regiment. G0ing to break down your post for esier clarificatuion.
First off, I know not all reefs are the same and not all methods work for everyone but it sounds like what your doing is working great and from the looks of it, your corals appear to be thriving.
A couple of questions tor you though,
when you say:
"a low nutrient system you want alk between 7-8 cal 440, mag 1390 ball park. My nitrates are 2-5ppm"
I've asked this question before and I don't remember if I ever got a straight answer..
What is classified as a LNS. Is there a range?

Dosing NOPOX:
"dose nopox 20ml a day or they go up."
What chemical/ parameter goes up when you dose it?
When I've seen ads for this product, and have been tempted many times to get it however, it just makes me think its just liquified GFO and I feel like liquid PO4 remover really isn't effective unless theres black magic invloved. LOL

"dose the redsea trace elements"
yes, I know what this product is, and In fact, I have it and however, I've only dosed it once. Reason for it, is because I'm a big fan of testing before you dose and i feel like if I dose it, i need to test for it.

"Since this is based on calcium only, it means my tank gets 1.5 ml of each per day"
I tried to go in and read the literature on the red sea trace elements and in all honesty, found it to be quite confusing.
so, what I hear you say, is that the trace elements are based off of Calcium and if your levels are at a certain point then you dose X amount of A,B and C?

"I do feed my corals twice a week"
What do you feed?
I find that i don't feed the corals however, I do broadcast feed the entire tank with LRS reef frenzy nano once a day.

 

[Sarah24!]

hello,

Sorry I don’t know how to quote the quote box for your questions so I will just start there . Thank you as well it’s been an interesting journey for sure.

1.) low nutrient is when your running nitrates and phospahates either at zero or very close to it. The ecosystem needs some nutrients to feed on and if there isn’t they simply starve. So for example if you have super low nitrates and phosphates but dose your alk Huber than 9 and calcium higher than 440, they tend not to color up as well or grow as well because there is lack of food and nutrients in the system, the water is tooo clean. Now granted some have found certain spots and are able to. Whats tricky is nobodies system is the same. Example 98% of all corals only need 200 par to grow and show their colors. When corals go brown it’s simply a parameter is off that it doesn’t like. Many times all of my coral do great and one doesn’t. Makes it harder to find what it doesn’t like (usually 1 by 1 step method works). But anyway when using a low nutrient system of you keep the alk and cal at the normal levels or tad lower then they thrive more. Another point is leds are a focused light. You may try turning them down 10% and see if there are any changes then obviously adjust where necessary. In a low nutrient system usually magnesium is still around 1390 but changes to like 1340 for lps sps and 1300 roughly for mixed reef.

2.) the redsea nopox is designed to lower po3 and Po4 aka nitrates and phosphates. So for example my tank is 240 gallons and I have 13 fish (five are tangs, 6 green chromies, bellus angle and a clown fish). I also have a very full reef, at one point I was changing up to 80 gallons a week because my nitrates would go to 20ppm. Now I have no idea why i
Haven’t figured that out yet, (can’t be feeding I feed five frozen cubes once a day for 13 fish), I use just coral reef food (it’s a fine powder but works pretty good (name is coral reef food it’s in a little bag). Some times twice a week sometimes once week depends). But I use an eye drop to feed each one, so again 160 gallons in two weeks every two weeks is over 50%. Plus I used filter socks, skimmer and fiber pads to catch left over. It wasn’t fun and my sps didn’t like the higher nitrates but the rest of the tank loved it. So instead of doing that I went to the nopox and it keeps it in check.
Nopox is I guess similar to gfo or vodka dosing per say, but there are some catches to it. First off even redsea clearly states on page 6 that once you start you basicslly can’t stop. You can go down to the minimum, and then maybe lower that once a week. But generally you will make your corals become addicted to it. So by stopping it suddenly will definitely kill them but even after time corals May have what we call withdrawal symptoms. It’s like alcohol in some cases and other like benzodiazepines, prednisone, opioids etc. one can ween off of it, but still suffer withdrawal symptoms for life. I have attempted to actually very slowly ween my tank off, two things happened quickly, nitrates went up and my corals went very upset. So something to strongly consider if you do. As long as you do the min for your water volume your fine. You can skip a day as well but I would not suggest two etc. it’s 30 for the bottle but lasts me a good six months where as water changes I was close to 150-200 so it’s cheaper and easier also (for me since a five gallon water jug is half my weight at 45 pounds roughly) carring 12 of those is no fun.

3 and 4 the instructions are better thrown away they are terrible. It took me awhile to figure it out also and I work in the medical field lol. But in short its based on calcium find out how many grams you dose a day and convert that to ml and your set. I have never had much luck in chasing numbers or extreme testing. I’m sure they make a test somewhere but haven’t seen one. I use the crappy api and they are close enough they work. Point to consider it’s been shown in scientific studies and papers that super stable systems actually weaken coral. The more your tank swings (not a lot) the better. If I go from an 8 to 7 alk that’s fine going to 6 or 9 or higher not so much. You want the tank to have some minor changes or swings it builds up the immunity of your corals and fish as well.

I feed just some cheap reef food it’s called coral reef food (literally lol). It’s like 5.99 st my lfs. They finally sell reef roids so may try that for the giggles. If you have more questions by all means ask and thanks for the compliments.

Cheers
Sarah