Rising ZINC - cannot find root cause

Alexander1312 · Jul 29, 2023

Reefahholic said:
Not if you’re not dosing zinc specifically. I figured you were. You’re dosing all the individual elements, but not zinc?

Yes, correct. No Zinc dosing, but almost all other individual elements that Triton provides.

chonsworth · Jul 29, 2023

Could it be a metal pipe clamp? IICR they can have zinc involved.

Alexander1312 · Jul 30, 2023

chonsworth said:
Could it be a metal pipe clamp? IICR they can have zinc involved.

It’s a small 26-gallon nano that does not need clamps, just a Red Sea skimmer pump, a return pump, and a couple of MP10s. I am assuming that something that I am adding contains ZINC.

chonsworth · Jul 31, 2023

Ooh, hmm - I'm curious on this as well, my ICP came back with higher ZINC as well, I gathered it was my clamps.

Alexander1312 · Jul 31, 2023

chonsworth said:
Ooh, hmm - I'm curious on this as well, my ICP came back with higher ZINC as well, I gathered it was my clamps.

So, possibly a conclusion of this thread is the following: I mentioned earlier that I started dosing Tropic Marin NP Bacto Balance. According to Tropic Marin, NP Bacto Balance contains the TP Trace Elements K+, which contains Zinc for trace element dosing purposes. My Zinc was already at around 10, which combined with approx. two weeks of a daily small dose of NP BActo Balance could have brought up the Zinc to this level. If there are any other views, I would love to hear them.

Dorsetsteve · Jul 31, 2023

Alexander1312 said:
So, possibly a conclusion of this thread is the following: I mentioned earlier that I started dosing Tropic Marin NP Bacto Balance. According to Tropic Marin, NP Bacto Balance contains the TP Trace Elements K+, which contains Zinc for trace element dosing purposes. My Zinc was already at around 10, which combined with approx. two weeks of a daily small dose of NP BActo Balance could have brought up the Zinc to this level. If there are any other views, I would love to hear them.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I clicked on this thread because I’ve had very similar issues myself in the past. When you have multiple sources of traces going in, if one of those traces is not taken up as quickly as added it’s going to accumulate.

Personally. I’d run some carbon, do some water changes and stop adding Bacto Balance. Review the results in a month.