Need advice on first ICP test.

[Cannoy]

I currently have a 20 long sps tank, i have had issues with color and growth so i decided to send in an ICP test.
Currently i’m running two AI primes at 100% on all channels and i have about 90x turn over in the tank. My alkalinity is stable at about 10 and my nitrates are around 20. I see a few thing on the ICP that’s a little low like calcium, strontium and iron, but does anything else look too high or low?

 

[PatW]

Iodine is low. With a 20 long, if you have worries about trace elements, the easiest fix is just a massive water change. Just pick a salt mix favored by people who aquaculture acropora .

 

[Cannoy]

Would raising my iodine and iron make much of a different in color? I've been reading and seen where Randy says these two elements dont affect sps much, and i think the rest of my trace elements are close to where they should be. I thought maybe there is something else in my test that is out of place that I dont see.

 

[Cannoy]

Decided to do about a 95% water change with Instant Ocean, should i send in another ICP or trust that the parameters of the salt mix are good enough?

 

[Hermie]

Decided to do about a 95% water change with Instant Ocean, should i send in another ICP or trust that the parameters of the salt mix are good enough?

no offense but I don't think that was a great idea... it would have probably been better to do several 25% water changes a few days apart...

that said, I would wait to see how the corals respond to the huge water change, at least give it a few days or week

 

[Cannoy]

I was definitely a little hesitant about doing a large water change like that, but about a month ago I visited Reef Systems, a coral farm near Columbus OH, and they said they do 100% water changes all the time even on their 900g display. I'm not sure if what i did was a good idea or not, but I did at least match alk, calc, mag, salinity and temp.

 

[Hermie]

I was definitely a little hesitant about doing a large water change like that, but about a month ago I visited Reef Systems, a coral farm near Columbus OH, and they said they do 100% water changes all the time even on their 900g display. I'm not sure if what i did was a good idea or not, but I did at least match alk, calc, mag, salinity and temp.

it may turn out fine, it's just give it a bit of time to see

 

[taricha]

I was definitely a little hesitant about doing a large water change like that, but about a month ago I visited Reef Systems, a coral farm near Columbus OH, and they said they do 100% water changes all the time even on their 900g display. I'm not sure if what i did was a good idea or not, but I did at least match alk, calc, mag, salinity and temp.

If they do "100% water changes all the time", then their parameters will always be close to salt mix, and no risk of harm.
But if someone does near 100% water changes very rarely, then the old water in the tank may look nothing like the salt mix. Great potential for harm or stress.
That you matched most key parameters is a good thing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I currently have a 20 long sps tank, i have had issues with color and growth so i decided to send in an ICP test.
Currently i’m running two AI primes at 100% on all channels and i have about 90x turn over in the tank. My alkalinity is stable at about 10 and my nitrates are around 20. I see a few thing on the ICP that’s a little low like calcium, strontium and iron, but does anything else look too high or low?

I'm not convinced this company generates accurate data, so I would not agonize over unusual results you may get from them.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

There's nothing wrong or unusual about iron below detection limits. It cannot detect natural levels typical of most of the ocean.

 

[User1]

I'm not convinced this company generates accurate data, so I would not agonize over unusual results you may get from them.

Follow up question if you will. Is this specific to the vendor the OP's use for ICP or is it more broad to include others?

Just curious as I understand there are some discussions going on with regards to results, volume of tests per day, calibration, and other things.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Follow up question if you will. Is this specific to the vendor the OP's use for ICP or is it more broad to include others?

Just curious as I understand there are some discussions going on with regards to results, volume of tests per day, calibration, and other things.

This vendor. The owner showed a distinct lack of understanding of chemistry and whether his data made sense when discussed by him and some of our resident chemists in detail in this chemistry forum.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

This is the discussion:

ICP testing

https://www.icp-analysis.com/ Is this a good thing? Based in Colorado. I've never been into much testing but I would do this. $100 for five tests. Comments please.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[User1]

This vendor. The owner showed a distinct lack of understanding of chemistry and whether his data made sense when discussed by him and some of our resident chemists in detail in this chemistry forum.

Thank you for the information. I've not used this vendor only ATI so was curious. And even with those couple of tests it was to see how a couple of the results compare to my manual testing.

 

[User1]

This is the discussion:

ICP testing

https://www.icp-analysis.com/ Is this a good thing? Based in Colorado. I've never been into much testing but I would do this. $100 for five tests. Comments please.

www.reef2reef.com

Thank you. That is informative. Appreciate it.

 

[JustAnotherNanoTank]

Depending on what sps you have, I feel like 20 nitrate is a bit high. Especially in small tanks like ours. How are your phosphates as well? I also run 2 AI primes but I don’t run them at 100% all channels. That’s just not good spectrum, IMO.

 

[Cannoy]

There's nothing wrong or unusual about iron below detection limits. It cannot detect natural levels typical of most of the ocean.

I didnt know this about iron, I have just been trying to figure out what could cause poor color in my corals and thought something like this could be the reason.

Depending on what sps you have, I feel like 20 nitrate is a bit high. Especially in small tanks like ours. How are your phosphates as well? I also run 2 AI primes but I don’t run them at 100% all channels. That’s just not good spectrum, IMO.

For the longest time my nitrates and phosphate were undetectable on salifert kits, i couldnt see a color change on the phosphate kit anyway. I started feeding more and I dosed some TSP in the last couple months and thats when my nitrate and phosphate went up. After doing this I did notice the color in corals change a little but I still lost color in a new frag i got after a couple weeks. And based on this ICP my phosphate should be around .09 if the test can be trusted. Also I recently started running the primes at 100%, they're on 100% for about 7 hours and then I run less white at night.

 

[JustAnotherNanoTank]

Well right there you said recently changed to running them at 100%. Changing the lights after corals are used to them can affect them.

 

[Cannoy]

I've never had good color in the coral so I assumed the primes werent putting out enough par, thats why i put them to 100%. I did this about 2 weeks ago and so far i havent seen any color change, but i did notice a change when i dosed TSP