Triton Lab Results - Corrective Action

ThePriceSeliger · Mar 8, 2016

I've been having a lot of problems with my tank so I opted into a Triton test to help me figure out what was wrong. As I had suspected, the tank is starving. As you'll see in the results, all the items seem fixable with some dosing. My main question is, which products to purchase to dose these elements, which test kits, and overall strategy to bring my tank back from the brink of death.

I can literally DUMP food and other some other additives in the tank with little increase in PO4 or NO3. I don't have a skimmer, removed filter socks, just a healthy chunk of carbon and a tiny bit of GFO (which I'll take offline tonight).

I've been noticing from STN and RTN, I'm assuming it's because of the issues noted, but I'm interested in all theories.

Cory · Mar 8, 2016

Curious how many fish do you have? How much food do you feed?

ThePriceSeliger · Mar 8, 2016

I have nine fish. 1 Diamond Goby, 2 Clowns, 2 Chromis, 2 Anthias, 1 yellow wrasse and 1 melanarus wrasse. I feed about a quarter sized slab of LRS once a day, and about every other night I mix Reef Roids, Reef Chili, Phyto and Oyster Feast. To no avail. I can only be around to feed so much, so I'm struggling coming up with a solution.

Cory · Mar 8, 2016

Thats a lotof fish! How many gallons? Do you have sand? Is it sugar fine? How deep is it? Water changes?

Fwiw you can add po4.

ThePriceSeliger · Mar 8, 2016

Cory said:
Thats a lotof fish! How many gallons? Do you have sand? Is it sugar fine? How deep is it? Water changes?

It seems like a lot, but they are pretty small besides for my melanarus wrasse. 65 gallons, ish. I do have sand, Fiji Pink, about 40lbs of it, about 1.5" - 2" deep on average. Water change is continuous, I've been lowering the amount, right now I'm only doing about 1,000mL a day. May reduce it further, but it seems to be achieving solid results everywhere else besides trace elements.

Cory said:
Fwiw you can add po4.

I assumed so. My first post stated I was curious on products for corrective action and an overall strategy.

ThePriceSeliger · Mar 8, 2016

Edit: Double post.

Cory · Mar 8, 2016

Thats probably your problem, the continuous water change. And the gfo. Gfo is very effective at removing po4. I wouldnt adds po4 until you see the effect of removing gfo.

Im curious whats your nitrate at? It seems if you have nitrate you habe no po4. And if you have po4, you have no no3. Lol

ThePriceSeliger · Mar 8, 2016

I'd be hesitant to completely eliminate it, but I will continue to reduce it. GFO is offline now.

I've been testing Nitrate with my new Nyos kit, and it's been reading zero, or just slightly above. But basically unreadable. PO4 testing is done with a ULR Hanna.

Also, I'm interested in replacing Potassium, Boron, Strontium, and Iodine. Do these elements need to be dosed individually or is there a product containing one or more of these elements.

ThePriceSeliger · Mar 8, 2016

It looks like the Sea Water Complex from KZ seems to include all of my needed trace and some extra.

Cory · Mar 8, 2016

Hmm well it seems hard to dose them all, if you wabt dose that product, but i wouldnt unless i noticed a problem when po4 is back to normal for a few weeks.

Iodine is more for softies. Boron is mainly for ph buffering. Potassium is mainly for algae. And strontium is mostly not known for the importance if it is or not.

ThePriceSeliger · Mar 8, 2016

Cory said:
Hmm well it seems hard to dose them all, if you wabt dose that product, but i wouldnt unless i noticed a problem when po4 is back to normal for a few weeks.

Iodine is more for softies. Boron is mainly for ph buffering. Potassium is mainly for algae. And strontium is mostly not known for the importance if it is or not.

So focus on the PO4 first then work on the trace later on? Will do.

Cory · Mar 8, 2016

Yes thats what id do. Po4 is one of the main building block for tissues, so i wouldnt worry about the trace elements yet.

Cory · Mar 8, 2016

But for me id raise the potassium, as its 70ppm ish low.

JimWelsh · Mar 8, 2016

FWIW, a reported "0.00" on a Triton test does not necessarily mean "0.00". Having tracked every online Triton report I've seen posted, I see a LOT of P results of "0.00", but the lowest non-zero P number I've seen is 1.99, with the next highest being 2.00, . I suspect that the Limit of Detection for this test is very near 2.00, and any "0.00" result should probably be more accurately read as "< 2.00".

EDIT: By the way, what salt mix do you use? You have nice low lithium; most USA tanks are high in lithium.

biom · Mar 8, 2016

LOD of triton test phosphorous is 1.42 ppb - 2.32 ppb

ThePriceSeliger · Mar 8, 2016

JimWelsh said:
FWIW, a reported "0.00" on a Triton test does not necessarily mean "0.00". Having tracked every online Triton report I've seen posted, I see a LOT of P results of "0.00", but the lowest non-zero P number I've seen is 1.99, with the next highest being 2.00, . I suspect that the Limit of Detection for this test is very near 2.00, and any "0.00" result should probably be more accurately read as "< 2.00".

EDIT: By the way, what salt mix do you use? You have nice low lithium; most USA tanks are high in lithium.

Red Sea Pro salt. So if the LOD on the Triton test is that high, it doesn't narrow down my problems too much. Both my Hanna PO4 and ULR Phosphorous all say 0. Maybe @Randy Holmes-Farley can chime in.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 8, 2016

Cory said:
But for me id raise the potassium, as its 70ppm ish low.

Yes, that may be worth raising.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 8, 2016

ThePriceSeliger said:
Red Sea Pro salt. So if the LOD on the Triton test is that high, it doesn't narrow down my problems too much. Both my Hanna PO4 and ULR Phosphorous all say 0. Maybe @Randy Holmes-Farley can chime in.

If all those say zero, that seems low.

I'd look to allow it to climb, either with more food, or direct dosing.