ATI ICP shows zero Nitrates, low Iodine, Manganese, Zinc

[jjbunn]

My 75 gallon reef tank has been running for a couple of years. My problem is that corals have never thrived in it: quite the opposite. For example, Green Star Polyps added about a year ago, initially spread a bit, but now seem to be on the decline. Coralline algae, although present on the live rocks the tank was started with, hardly ever spreads to the other surfaces. Oddly, a Gorgonian added about a year ago, seems to love it in there, and has been growing steadily, and some mushroom corals (Actinodiscus) survive and occasionally split. Other corals I've tried rarely survive more than a couple of months, so it is all a bit frustrating.

Fish Stock: Coral Beauty Angel, Engineer Goby (about 1ft long now), two Percula Clowns
Other: large cleanup crew with various snails, hermit crabs, etc. Gorgonia, GSP, Mushrooms, a lot of live rock from Salty Bottom Reef Co.
Lighting: One Kessil 160 Tuna Blue, two Phlizon black boxes (with red/green LEDs replaced by 420nm LEDs)
Water treatment: Reef Octopus HOB skimmer, Seachem Tidal 75 HOB filter with supplied media.

I sent my tank water off to ATI for the ICP test, and just got the results back (see below). They show zero Nitrates, and low Iodine/Manganese/Zinc.

Is the cure to all my problems to dose some Iodine, and Mn/Zn? Or what would you advise?

Thanks!

 

[Dan_P]

My 75 gallon reef tank has been running for a couple of years. My problem is that corals have never thrived in it: quite the opposite. For example, Green Star Polyps added about a year ago, initially spread a bit, but now seem to be on the decline. Coralline algae, although present on the live rocks the tank was started with, hardly ever spreads to the other surfaces. Oddly, a Gorgonian added about a year ago, seems to love it in there, and has been growing steadily, and some mushroom corals (Actinodiscus) survive and occasionally split. Other corals I've tried rarely survive more than a couple of months, so it is all a bit frustrating.

Fish Stock: Coral Beauty Angel, Engineer Goby (about 1ft long now), two Percula Clowns
Other: large cleanup crew with various snails, hermit crabs, etc. Gorgonia, GSP, Mushrooms, a lot of live rock from Salty Bottom Reef Co.
Lighting: One Kessil 160 Tuna Blue, two Phlizon black boxes (with red/green LEDs replaced by 420nm LEDs)
Water treatment: Reef Octopus HOB skimmer, Seachem Tidal 75 HOB filter with supplied media.

I sent my tank water off to ATI for the ICP test, and just got the results back (see below). They show zero Nitrates, and low Iodine/Manganese/Zinc.

Is the cure to all my problems to dose some Iodine, and Mn/Zn? Or what would you advise?

Thanks!

View attachment 3097679
View attachment 3097680

Your system might be depleted in trace elements that the organisms are struggling. You can try figuring out what your system needs or just add a broad range of trace elements according to the directions. You can add less than the instructions and increase over time. There is no hurry.

 

[jjbunn]

Your system might be depleted in trace elements that the organisms are struggling. You can try figuring out what your system needs or just add a broad range of trace elements according to the directions. You can add less than the instructions and increase over time. There is no hurry.

Thanks, Dan!

I guess I'm unsure whether to focus on a) Nitrates being exactly 0.0, or b) on the trace elements (I,Zn,Mn) deficiency. Which is more likely to be the cause of my disappointing coral growth?

 

[Dan_P]

Thanks, Dan!

I guess I'm unsure whether to focus on a) Nitrates being exactly 0.0, or b) on the trace elements (I,Zn,Mn) deficiency. Which is more likely to be the cause of my disappointing coral growth?

I am definitely not qualified to even guess I think we will get some ideas from other forum members.

 

[jjbunn]

I think what I will do is a) stop the skimmer, b) remove the HOB filter, and then see what the Nitrates do in a few days.

As another gauge, I have a very flaccid Kenya Tree coral - he's been like that for many months - if he perks up a bit then maybe that will indicate I'm going in the right direction.

 

[jda]

Other than macroalgae using some mn, not sure that there is any proof that corals need any of that... and even then, the mn in just water changes is usually enough, at least for me.

If you want something actionable, feed your fish to get more nitrogen to your corals, get more fish and/or change some water to replenish some traces.

 

[Seansea]

How did these changes work for you?

 

[fullinfusion]

My recommendation from what I'm seeing and understanding is you do in fact have bottomed out on your Trace elements. That being said do a big water change to start. I would highly recommend AFR as it has a lot of Trace elements.

GSP and your Kenya tree and mushrooms really rely alot in my past experience on iodine. Remember GSP and Kenya tree and even mushrooms like dirtier water. I didn't see what the nitrates are at? Also from some others on the web and even some online vendors sell ATI kits but generally don't trust them and recommend different brands. If you can't keep up with doing water changes to replenish your Trace elements or maybe your system is using them up too fast then try tropic Marin AFR. I'm not trying to sound like a salesman but I've seen the results personally on my own system since using AFR and even keeping up with weekly water changes my corals are just flourishing. My tank is only 4 months old and is still in its juvenile stage but I do believe I've done a few things right over the months and avoided the ugly stage a couple times already just by doing some good housekeeping.

Zoas for example love iodine and you will notice their colors just pop when they're getting the right amount of elements especially iodine.

Your salinity is also at 37 and that's too high. You probably been dosing a two-part I'm assuming?

That without keeping up with water changes will definitely up the salinity of the water and that's why there's a lot of people that have great success using AFR since it does not raise salinity overtime unlike two part dosing. I know this thread is not that new but hopefully you can fill us in on how things went.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

AFR

?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

?

A Tropic Marin product called All For Reef.

 

[Derrick0580]

You might up your feeding, dose a good iodine supplement according to the directions on the bottle, and dose brightwell’s replenish.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You might up your feeding, dose a good iodine supplement according to the directions on the bottle, and dose brightwell’s replenish.

Replenish seems like an bad product design to me for a trace element supplement.

it claims:

"Provides 29 minor and trace minerals, all present in natural seawater ratios."

which doesn't seem desirable. Wouldn't a better product be based on the typical rate of depletion of each trace element, not the ratio present in seawater, which adds ions regardless of whether it is rapidly consumed, slowly consumed, or not consumed at all?

Then we see what they actually claim is in it.

Ingredients
Purified water, Salts of Barium, Vanadium, Zinc, Nickel, Chromium, Iron, Manganese, Hafnium, Cobalt, Lanthanum, Neodymium, Cerium, Silver, Dysprosium, Gadolinium, Ytterbium, Erbium, Scandium, Samarium , Praseodymium, Holmium, Lutetium, Terbium, Europium, and Thulium

What a ridiculous list of trace elements to add. They are missing critical trace elements (e.g., molybdenum, copper) and add a bunch of trace elements with no known biological role in any known organism (most of their list, including everything bolded above).

My suggestion is to use a different product, such as Tropic Marin A and K, which a much more reasonable set of claims:

barium, boron, chrome, iron, cobalt, copper, manganese, nickel strontium and zinc
bromine, fluorine, iodine, lithium, molybdenum, selenium and vanadium

 

[Derrick0580]

Is A &K safe to use with Kalkwasser?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Is A &K safe to use with Kalkwasser?

You mean to use in the same tank? Yes, that's a good combo. If you mean mix them together, no.

 

[Seansea]

SO randy Do you recommend Tropic Marin? Have you used it with good success. I just started dosing AFR a week and half ago and havent seen any dfference. My icp was really close to this guys(not the salinity) the same as this guys and my zoas and lps havent looked so great over last month while my sps is growing like crazy. I think the fleshy corals seem to want iodine and maganese and my algae scrubber is depleting this like crazy maybe. I also looked into dosing isol8 mt with it that somebody recommended for anyone with a scrubber. Maybe AFR and isol8 mt is too much?

 

[Derrick0580]

You mean to use in the same tank? Yes, that's a good combo. If you mean mix them together, no.

Yes i meant on same tank. I drip kalk 24 hrs a day, would put A and K on separate dosing heads. Do they need to be dosed a couple hours apart or can they go in at the same time each day?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

SO randy Do you recommend Tropic Marin? Have you used it with good success. I just started dosing AFR a week and half ago and havent seen any dfference. My icp was really close to this guys(not the salinity) the same as this guys and my zoas and lps havent looked so great over last month while my sps is growing like crazy. I think the fleshy corals seem to want iodine and maganese and my algae scrubber is depleting this like crazy maybe. I also looked into dosing isol8 mt with it that somebody recommended for anyone with a scrubber. Maybe AFR and isol8 mt is too much?

I've never used TM A and K, but many folks have been happy with it. My opinion is based largely on what they write about it, and the respect I have for the scientific competence of Hans-Werner Balling and other TM folks. They not infrequently post at Reef2Reef, and while I may quibble with them about the details of what methods might be better than others, I've not seen them post anything grossly incorrect. I know that sounds like a low hurdle, but many other companies cannot even pass that based on their product descriptions alone.

FWIW, no trace element dosing scheme is without fault or limitation, including TM A and K, but there's no good way around that unless you have confidence in ICP testing and do a lot of it to optimize lots of different dosing solutions.

I personally would not combine multiple brands without monitoring by ICP of what is actually needed.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes i meant on same tank. I drip kalk 24 hrs a day, would put A and K on separate dosing heads. Do they need to be dosed a couple hours apart or can they go in at the same time each day?

I don't think there is any substantial timing limitation if they are not dosing into the same exact location.

 

[jjbunn]

How did these changes work for you?

After turning off skimmer and removing the HOB filter (which I found was growing a lot of macro algae, probably stripping my nitrates, and was maybe the cause of bottoming out), I then dosed NeoNitro daily and cautiously. I watched the NO3 levels come back slowly to around 5-10 ppm. I also one-off dosed Seachem Reef Iodide according to the bottle instructions to bring the level up to what it should be, but I have no test for Iodide to check.

Everything started to perk up, including the Kenya Tree and the GSP. I added a couple more fish.

I also tried dosing NeoPhos, but could never seem to get it to affect my measurements, which remain between 0 and 0.03ppm.

During all the above, I was attacked by dinos, which I handled with a UV unit.

After a couple of weeks I stopped the Nitrate dosing, I added back the skimmer, and the HOB filter, and that is how I'm running now. The Nitrates are consistent at 5-10ppm and things are growing, although the rate is unexciting. The dinos are almost completely gone - I'm hoping that they get eliminated by competing algae, and I wonder whether I should actually try to increase Nitrates from 5-10ppm by dosing to maybe 25ppm to get some stimulus?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I also tried dosing NeoPhos, but could never seem to get it to affect my measurements, which remain between 0 and 0.03ppm.

Its very dilute, and phosphate takes a lot of dosing to boost numbers due to rock and sand binding.