What trace elements affect coral coloration the most in your experience?

[duberii]

I'm trying to figure out if I could test for ONE trace element, which would it be? I'm not talking about magnesium or calcium or anything like that. I'm pondering strontium, iodine, zinc, iron, etc. So far what I've read is that strontium is big when talking about coloration. Does anybody's experience back that up?

 

[andrewey]

At one time or another, I have dosed potassium, iodine, strontium, ascorbic acid, manganese, silica, iron, nitrate, potassium, amino acids, and maybe one or two others that aren't coming to mind. In many cases, I believed I noticed subtle changes in the coloration of my corals after I began dosing. However, the real test for me was to stop dosing (after ~3 months of dosing each chemical, I would stop dosing that particular agent). With the exception of three cases*, I never noticed any changes in coloration after discontinuing and I no longer dose any chemicals outside of calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, live foods, frozen foods, and water changes (or silica if I'm battling large cell amph).

*The exceptions were that my macroalgae became much more saturated after dosing iron (and faded after d/c), and my coloration changed on tanks where my N + P were low (<1ppm nitrate, ~0.03ppm phosphate) and changed after I discontinuing dosing.

**I also noticed an explosion of sponges after dosing silica.
***My skimmate became darker/stinkier after dosing vitamin C, but was equivalent to when I would dose other carbon sources.

 

[andrewey]

If you do decide to dose a particular trace element to your tank, it's worthwhile to stop dosing after 3-6 months and see if you notice any effects.

 

[Miller535]

I'm trying to figure out if I could test for ONE trace element, which would it be? I'm not talking about magnesium or calcium or anything like that. I'm pondering strontium, iodine, zinc, iron, etc. So far what I've read is that strontium is big when talking about coloration. Does anybody's experience back that up?

Strontium from my understanding is important for the formation of skeleton of LPS and SPS corals more then color. But I would still chose strontium.

 

[duberii]

At one time or another, I have dosed potassium, iodine, strontium, ascorbic acid, manganese, silica, iron, nitrate, potassium, amino acids, and maybe one or two others that aren't coming to mind. In many cases, I believed I noticed subtle changes in the coloration of my corals after I began dosing. However, the real test for me was to stop dosing (after ~3 months of dosing each chemical, I would stop dosing that particular agent). With the exception of three cases*, I never noticed any changes in coloration after discontinuing and I no longer dose any chemicals outside of calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, live foods, frozen foods, and water changes (or silica if I'm battling large cell amph).

*The exceptions were that my macroalgae became much more saturated after dosing iron (and faded after d/c), and my coloration changed on tanks where my N + P were low (<1ppm nitrate, ~0.03ppm phosphate) and changed after I discontinuing dosing.

**I also noticed an explosion of sponges after dosing silica.
***My skimmate became darker/stinkier after dosing vitamin C, but was equivalent to when I would dose other carbon sources.

So in your experience it wasn't worth it?

 

[duberii]

Strontium from my understanding is important for the formation of skeleton of LPS and SPS corals more then color. But I would still chose strontium.

Have you noticed an increase in growth from monitoring and dosing strontium?

 

[Miller535]

Have you noticed an increase in growth from monitoring and dosing strontium?

I have only started dosing it about a week ago as it was recommended to me based off of Triton ICP. So no. But if you look at most sites, other then the big three, strontium and Iodine are the main two they usually recommend.

 

[andrewey]

So in your experience it wasn't worth it?

Correct. I personally don't dose these chemicals (beyond WC) for the purposes of improving coloration (partly based on my observations, but largely based on reading other's experiences), but if you do decide to go ahead and start dosing, I'd be interested to hear what your experience is like


*I do replenish iron periodically for the growth rate of my refugium (for nutrient export), but beyond the coloration of the cheato, I haven't found any difference in my softies/lps/sps.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

The only trace elements that affect coloration in my experience is copper sulphate which lightens the color by reducing the zoox in the coral or a combination of manganese and zinc which will give acropora a metallic sheen and a particular pop to some colors. Once you have a tank with nice growing acropora the manganese and zinc is a pretty good way to boost the look of your acropora. I think I remember iron shouldn’t be dosed with the two though because it does something to cancel it I think.

 

[andrewey]

The only trace elements that affect coloration in my experience is copper sulphate which lightens the color by reducing the zoox in the coral or a combination of manganese and zinc which will give acropora a metallic sheen and a particular pop to some colors. Once you have a tank with nice growing acropora the manganese and zinc is a pretty good way to boost the look of your acropora. I think I remember iron shouldn’t be dosed with the two though because it does something to cancel it I think.

What form of manganese did you use? I never noticed any change dosing H2MnO5S on any of my acropora.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I honestly don’t remember, and I could be wrong about the iron but I think I remember hearing it has to be low for the manganese and zinc to work. There were some threads on rc that talked about it a while ago but most just used regular supplements from companies like aquaforest. Also some used their vitamins and said they saw brighter colors on some pieces. There is an article somewhere on how manganese and zinc work together but it might take some digging to find. That article might have the info on how iron is involved too.

 

[andrewey]

I honestly don’t remember, and I could be wrong about the iron but I think I remember hearing it has to be low for the manganese and zinc to work. There were some threads on rc that talked about it a while ago but most just used regular supplements from companies like aquaforest. Also some used their vitamins and said they saw brighter colors on some pieces. There is an article somewhere on how manganese and zinc work together but it might take some digging to find. That article might have the info on how iron is involved too.

Ah gotchya- thanks for the information! I'll poke around and see what I find. Hopefully I'll find someone who started dosing then stopped!

 

[Sallstrom]

Without meassuring the element it's a chance to overdose, if you already are high in that element without knowing it. I would recommend an ICP test, I prefer Triton but there are many companies doing ICP tests now. Then you can see if you are low in any element and start dosing. Then after a while do another ICP test and see how well your doses make up for the consumtion.

After years of dosing different elements and seeing what is consumed fast(from ICP tests), I would say iodine, iron and manganese could be dosed in small doses without being too worried for overdosing. Strontium and potassium can vary a lot depending of what sort of dosing you use already(calcium reactor, balling etc). But I would still recommend an ICP test before, just to be sure not to do anything that can harm the animals and algae.

I got away from the original question, sorry

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm trying to figure out if I could test for ONE trace element, which would it be? I'm not talking about magnesium or calcium or anything like that. I'm pondering strontium, iodine, zinc, iron, etc. So far what I've read is that strontium is big when talking about coloration. Does anybody's experience back that up?

Let's be clear with our terms please. Most of the things you list are not trace elements. Of everything you mention, only zinc and iron are trace elements. Calcium and magnesium and strontium are major ions. Iodine is a minor ion.

IMO, strontium is not beneficial to dose in any normal reef aquarium context. Color, growth, etc. Almost none of the organisms we keep actually benefit from strontium.

I'm also not generally accepting of the idea that specific elements relate to specific colors. Some elements may certainly get depleted (iron, manganese, etc.), and dosing them boosts general health which in turn may impact color.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Randy I am with you when you say certain elements don’t correlate with certain colors. There was an article years back that “explained” how to boost coloration on sps and each color had a specific element that was supposed to be dosed to boost certain colors. It was completely out of context and kinda only pertaining to ultra low nutrient systems. It was really worthless and for a long time a lot of reefers took it as straight fact and it really didn’t help anyone. I STILL see this write up referred to sometimes. At one point I made a post about it explaining how and why it was wrong. I have been in many threads trying to explain its faults but never really changed any minds. This hobby has a lot of information passed on like this. I see a lot of newer reefers struggle to understand things or even get their tank running right because they read so much of others personal experience instead of researching how it all really works.

I will try to find the article explaining how manganese and zinc work together to affect coral coloration. If anyone has any thoughts on it I would love to hear them.

 

[winstonswildride920]

Correct. I personally don't dose these chemicals (beyond WC) for the purposes of improving coloration (partly based on my observations, but largely based on reading other's experiences), but if you do decide to go ahead and start dosing, I'd be interested to hear what your experience is like


*I do replenish iron periodically for the growth rate of my refugium (for nutrient export), but beyond the coloration of the cheato, I haven't found any difference in my softies/lps/sps.

You only notice extra green in the cheato? I was watching a video the other day and the guy mentioned that iron drastically improved his greens across the board. Would be interested to know what is coupled with it to make green across the board improve vs you only seeing it in the cheato

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You only notice extra green in the cheato? I was watching a video the other day and the guy mentioned that iron drastically improved his greens across the board. Would be interested to know what is coupled with it to make green across the board improve vs you only seeing it in the cheato

I don’t think this is a useful exercise. IMO, there’s no evidence that dosing specific trace elements helps specific colors.

If corals are suffering, they may be pale or browned out or show other problems, and that suffering might be alleviated by a trace element if it is in short supply. But they do not magically cause colors.

 

[IntrinsicReef]

I have individually dosed many commonly used minor and trace elements into several systems. I have seen that adding flourine into an SPS dominated system where it is depleted causes the blue color in Acropora to intensify. I have also seen an overabundance of iodine cause some Acropora to turn green or gray. When I stopped dosing iodine the color reverted back after 3-4 months. These are really the only two visual observations I have made.