I would agree, but now after 7 ICP tests all of which confirmed my water parameters were stable and appropriate; the trace element depletion remained along with the few troubled zoa colonies. When you say water changes are enough to keep a thriving tank, yet I have to dose 8ml of Iodine weekly to keep my soft corals open is what absolutely blows my mind. I really hope to find some sort of answer to these extremes differences.
I have good success, and generally no problems. So if you didn't dose macro elements and such your corals would die? I'm talking away from the essentials that we know are required such as potassium, molybdenum, etc.
I agree. The trace element dosing is because a lot of people don't want to do significant water changes, imo. They might do a 5 gallon change on a 100 gallon system, and wonder why their problem doesn't go away.
It's sort of like buy a new tire (huge water change) or fixing a tire (adding a depleted element). I would be doing huge water changes all the time. For no good reason, even with large routine water changes the problem will be lurking with how fast my iodine and potassium are depleted. It's just more cost effective and less work. A 15$ bottle of potassium last a couple months. A 15$ bottle of iodine will last a year. But I could go threw 200 Gallons of salt mix in a month doing 25% water changes every week and still have the same problem. I guess Id rather keep my 10% water change routine every week, solve the problem and not have to deal with dieing coral. What works for me might not work for others but my tanks are fairly packed. When the op says what are the most important trace elements to zoas? they're not asking about water changes. They're looking to expand there knowledge and improve there husbandry, Though alot of people could do more water changes. It just looks different for all tanks. I'd rather just answer a person's question most of the time. Then assume somethig else, that's all I've really got to say. to me water changes are more expensive then adding the couple missing elements.
I agree with supplementation on large tanks vs water changes alone. I have previously answered the op's question, and for me, the fix for keeping trace elements in range is water changes for zoas.
For example, this was my first ATI ICP test results when I finally gave up on the idea that my Zoa troubles were based on fundamental water parameters after I've been running the exact same lighting schedule, flow, ETC. It seems as things finally settled in and growth took off, problems shortly ensued.
So which Zoas do you NOT have?I use Reef Crystals. Lost count of softies.
