Triton Individual Trace Element Strength vs ATI

[Maacc]

I use ATI for my ICP tests but I have some triton iodine and iron from a local reefer who got out. I have the ATI recommendations. Is there anyway to translate how much ATI is directing to what I have available from the triton element bottles?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I use ATI for my ICP tests but I have some triton iodine and iron from a local reefer who got out. I have the ATI recommendations. Is there anyway to translate how much ATI is directing to what I have available from the triton element bottles?

We can do several things, but in both cases, you'll want to know the concentration of the ions in the bottles you have from your friend.

In the case of iron, I do not believe that an ICP test is useful for judging how much (if any) to add since it cannot detect low enough, but we can advise on how much we would add, or if you prefer, we can guide you to the ATI desired concentration.

For iodine, it often depletes pretty fast and may no longer be at what the ICP said, but we can certainly give either a recommended dose, or again, advise on how to reach the NSW level from the ICP result.

 

[Maacc]

Randy,
They are new triton iron and iodine supplements. Is there any way to easily determine the concentrations? I run an ATS and fuge with a 300 watt grow light, so I am guessing some iron would help. I have a 187 gallon tank 60x30x24 and another 40 gallons or so in my sump 36x24x24.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Randy,
They are new triton iron and iodine supplements. Is there any way to easily determine the concentrations? I run an ATS and fuge with a 300 watt grow light, so I am guessing some iron would help. I have a 187 gallon tank 60x30x24 and another 40 gallons or so in my sump 36x24x24.

I'm not sure if they give values, so we may have to try to figure it out from recommendations Triton gives other people.

What were the values you got for your aquarium?

 

[Maacc]

I am attaching my ATI results in case I leave anything out.
Iodine - 17 micrograms/L
Iron - unreadable
Boron - 3.36 mg/L
I dose 60 ml of seachem fuel twice per week

These were ATI recommendations:
Bor
1
141.0 ml

Iod
3
1.11 ml

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The fuel will, of course, complicate any sort of exact dosing, but neither iron nor iodine needs to be exactly at NSW, and those levels may also not be best.

In this thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/f...build-of-850-gallon-reef.384812/#post-4673790

For 850 gallons, Triton recommended 38.6 mL for the full NSW target (0.06 ppm) since this guy had zero detected.

Thus for you, where you have, maybe 200 gallons of volume,and you already have 17/60 = 28% of the NSW level, you'd use about 200/850 (1-0.28) = 17% as much as him, or 6.5 ml.

note that within a week, the value will decline greatly again. Triton gives daily dose suggestions for him as well (3.9 mL) which scaled to your size tank is 0.9 mL per day.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I've not found a way to easily see how much iron is in their product, but iron dosing amounts and targets vary incredibly since it depletes very rapidly and true NSW levels on coral reefs aren't detectable by ICP. I'll look into this more later when i have more time.

 

[Maacc]

Thanks so much for all the help. I enjoy chemistry discussions but I am just an ironworker.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks so much for all the help. I enjoy chemistry discussions but I am just an ironworker.

Ha, an iron worker wanting advice on iron. lol

I did have a summer job as a "tin knocker", long time ago.

I can't find the concentration of the Triton iron product, but it may not matter all that much. I might just try adding a little (say, 1 mL) once a week and see what it does.

Here's my discussion about why the iron level isn't critical (IMO), and I generlaly now recommend an easy DIY made from Fergon tablets at a drug store:

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Iron In A Reef Tank
https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/8/chemistry

Iron in Reef Tanks: How Much and What Form?
Deciding how much iron to add is fairly easy because, in my experience, it doesn't seem to matter too much. Presumably, once you add enough to eliminate iron as a limiting nutrient, extra iron does not apparently cause harm (at least that I've detected in my tanks or heard of from others). I selected a dose of about 0.1 to 0.3 mL of a solution containing 5 g of iron (as 25 g of ferrous sulfate heptahydrate) in 250 mL of water containing 50.7 g of sodium citrate dihydrate. This liquid is dosed 2-3 times per week to my system with a total water volume of about 250 gallons. This iron(II) citrate has turned brown and cloudy since I first made up the bottle years ago, suggesting that it is oxidizing to iron(III) and some is precipitating from solution, but I still use it. Over the past 4 years, I've dosed nearly all of the 5 grams of actual iron to my tank.

Now that may sound like a huge amount, and it is. It's enough to bring 800 million gallons of completely depleted seawater up to the 0.000006 ppm level that I mentioned earlier for natural sea surface water. Still, I've not noticed any problem, do not know the steady state concentration, do not know how high of a solution concentration is actually optimal for my tank, do not know how much is biologically available by the mechanisms mentioned below, do not know how fast it is removed by skimming and other mechanisms, and do not know what would happen if I cut it back by a factor of 1,000.

All that I know is that microalgae has never been a problem since starting the iron, and I've not noticed anything negative that I could attribute to the iron (nor have I heard of any from others doing similar dosing). Still, I don't keep all organisms available to the hobby, and if you do seem to get a negative reaction from something, I'd advise backing off on the dose or stopping completely.

Since many hobbyists do not have access to the chemicals required to make iron(II) citrate, I'd advise buying a commercial iron supplement. There are a number available that seem appropriate and are not very expensive. Some commercial supplements combine manganese with iron (such as Kent's product), presumably because the scientific literature has demonstrated that phytoplankton also scavenge manganese from the water column. I've not experimented with manganese, but it is probably fine to use if you cannot find a pure iron supplement.

I'd also advise using only iron supplements that have the iron chelated to an organic molecule. The iron sold for freshwater applications is sometimes not chelated because free iron is more soluble in the lower pH of freshwater tanks. I'd avoid those products for marine applications. It will likely still work (as many of the studies in the scientific literature use free iron in seawater), but probably not as well because it may precipitate before it has fully fortified the system with iron.

In many cases of iron intended for the marine hobby, the product may not tell you what the iron is chelated with, in order to protect proprietary formulations. I don't actually know if it matters too much. Very strong chelation by certain molecules will actually inhibit bioavailability by not permitting release of the iron without completely taking apart the chelating molecule, but I expect that manufacturers have avoided those molecules. EDTA and citrate, and some others, actually degrade photochemically, releasing small amounts of free iron continually. It is believed to be the free iron that is actually taken up by many organisms, and likely iron(II), though some organisms may be able to convert iron(III) to iron(II) before uptake (the detailed absorption mechanisms are generally not known). There is a more detailed discussion of this degradation and uptake in "Captive Seawater Fishes" by Stephen Spotte (1992).